[SUGGESTION] Download limit default changed.

New players joining new servers are often met with a downloading screen. This screen can be quite frustrating for new players as they have to watch the progress of 1 download at a time maxing at 500Kb/s but often downloading slower.

My proposal is to change the default download limit to either max, or much much higher. It is 2014 and the average home Internet is doing nothing but increasing in speed. If the download limit was default to much higher then users would not have to wait nearly as long to join servers, resulting in a less frustrating experience. Then of course if someone wanted to lower the limit of the downloads you could easily change it in settings.

I have tried introducing several friends to this game and this is something they have all complained about. They start by complaining about downloading files, as they just want to try and play the game. Then they notice the speed is quite slow, I tell them they can change it in settings which frustrates them. By the time they get in a game they are already upset by the problems they have experienced.

That would be a reasonable decision indeed.

We want to check if that's okay with the hosts though, we don't want to be taxing the servers too much. I'd say that you're lucky to even reach those 500 kbps.

You are able to set the download speed higher in client side, so if it was a problem with hosts not being able to handle it then you wouldn't even have the option to increase it. Also you can set download servers so that all download traffic is from a specific server. when I changed it to 5 at a time at 1500KB/s per file, I actually maxed that speed while downloading from one of the servers.

If server owners were afraid of the load, they could easily set sv_curl_maxspeed on their side.

The client option should indeed be higher IMO, as 500kb/s is quite slow (even to an Australian).

Is there a reason to cap it at all by default?

Good points. I don't know why it's this value then.

Anyway, this setting was changed in revisions
623ce28 300 to 400 in May 2011
8b2e16e 400 to 500 in January 2012

It seems like most servers are capped at 150kbx2 anyways...