Downloading a file using Internet Explorer and playing an online FPS game such as Counter-Strike: Source simultaneously is not really a good idea. Reason is Internet Explorer will take up all the download bandwidth making the CS:S game nearly unplayable with a huge increased of ping causing it to lag. Moreover a lot of servers implements ping limits and if you go over it, you will be automatically kicked out of the game. The best way is to limit the internet download speed for the Internet Explorer process so that it doesn’t hogs the whole bandwidth.
Early last year I’ve written an article on how to restrict or limit internet download and upload transfer speed. I’ve featured both Shunra Nimbus and Traffic Shaper XP because they are free but both of it is pretty outdated by now. Today I stumbled on software called NetBalancer which is in constant development and it has a special internet speed priority feature.
NetBalancer is an internet traffic control and monitoring tool designed for Windows XP/2003/Vista/Win7. You can use NetBalancer to set download or upload transfer rate priority for any applications and monitor their internet traffic.
Most traffic shaping software sets speed limits for applications and processes which can be quite inconvenient. For example, you limit your downloading speed so you can still surf your favorite website. When you are done with surfing, the bandwidth is free, yet your downloading speed is still limited! Dealing with limits implies constant tuning of your traffic shaping program. But with NetBalancer, such problems will never exist because of the priority settings. Applications with a higher network priority will gain more traffic bandwidth than those with a lower one.
After setting all priorities and limits, you can see what is going on with the help of special features supported by NetBalancer. It can show all system processes with their in and out traffic speed; downloaded and uploaded traffic for any process or application since the start of NetBalancer. The free version of NetBalancer is limited to 5 process priorities/limits at a time. If you want to go over that limit, you will need to upgrade it to Pro version at the price of $24.95.
There is a total of 2 process by NetBalancer. When NetBalancer is sitting quietly in notification tray area, the SeriousBit.NetBalancer.Tray.exe process takes up about 6MB. However when you double click on the tray icon to bring up the user interface, the tray icon process goes up to 10MB and another process SeriousBit.NetBalancer.UI.exe which takes up an additional 20MB will run. Closing the UI window will terminate the process and leaving only the tray process running. Good thing is you can clear the tray memory usage by right clicking the tray icon and select “Free unused memory“.
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What do you say about NetLimiter?
Hahaha, I like the intro: …if your playing Counter Strike: Source :D
This looks like a nice tool and I was looking for something like this in the last few weeks…
I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Thank you all for your support and gift to newbies. As far as am concern the site is alright but i just want to suggest you create an icon in tool bar for fastest access buy all your subscribers.
thank you so much happy new year 2010. i want kasper key plz
Totally awesome, I was looking for this thang since age’s, thanku u buddy :*
Dear Raymoond,
Do you have any softwares to monitor Wireless.
I want to restrict my young brother, i dont want him play online game any more.
Regards,
Kency Vo
I’ve been a user of NetLimiter for many years now and it just works with no fuss.
netlimiter.com/
@ rono, sir, I try gigaget and I don’t see any option that can setup the priority of the downloads. I only see speed limit option that also IDM have.
just wondering if this software going to conflict with cfosspeed? thanks raymond. will give it a try.
I like the review raymond. I used to use netlimiter before you had to pay for it and its very useful to have a new product that can do what this does. Thanks
ray, as robzki suggests, i’d love to prioritize both my pc and the other pc on my network.
thanks a lot for this app
What would be nice is a way to assign different applications different network connections.
I have internet via dsl, cable and cellphone (3g).. but I can only use one at a time on the pc… and since any p2p activity slows my surfing way down, I’d like to assign p2p to the cable connection, and use the dsl or 3g for surfing.
Im guessing this would require an os change!
@ vhick you can also try gigaget instead of idm becoz it is free & has built in restrict bandwidth limit function & it’s as good as accelerator.
Dear Raymond,
Please answer this one question;
I have 1 mbps connection which translates to roughly 110 kB download bandwidth.
I play counter-strike 1.6 which uses around 5-10 kB bandwidth.
Now, with Netbalancer, i limited firefox download speed to 80 kBps, and then i checked, and it was definately downloading at 80 kB, but then when i play cs, it still lags and i get high ping.
Please help me Raymond,
Muaz.
Seems almost like cFoss Speed (except for the download and upload speed limit – cFos haven’t got it yet ) – which I’m using for a long, long time now in a home network of 5 computers, and I must say that cFos does its job very well when installed on all computers and properly configured. The new 5th version is available as a 30-day trial (which You can easily expand for another 30 days by reinstalling and deleting some registry keys) or You can order a lifetime license for just 10 Eur … or if You want I can share with You a special version (an older one, build 4.20) which was available with polish Komputer Świat Ekspert some time ago (a 365-day trial) – of course if its not against the rules.
Thanks for uploading this application. A very useful tools for everyone whose surfing on the net.
NetSpeedMonitor can’t even set priority and set up download and upload speed limits.
Ray thanks however works just as well :
floriangilles.com/software/netspeedmonitor
Thanks for the great find !
Useful tool. Thanks.
Great Program ! But the link you provided is not working right now.
Thanks
wow thanks rey!!!
Thanks for info
such a nice soft
thanks for the article sir raymond. I really need this one not because of the my IDM take all the bandwith while I’m surfing.
Nice. Need this for online gaming when download. Hope it works as it says.
Very nice program ;-)
Thank you Ray
nice tool Ray … but is there any software same as that which can be use in a home network where one pc can control the bandwidth of every pc at home, coz my brother’s pc hogz our internet whenever he downloads something on rapidshare…
hope u can help me with this… thanks