Valve has finally announced a new content delivery system for Steam which will greatly increase performance, shorter download time, reduce the size of files and many more features.

According to the announcement, “maximum aggregate bandwidth of the system” will be greater, which will allow downloads faster when activity spikes during a big release.

“We will also be able to send content from more places, to better serve people all around the globe,” read the statement. “All the content on the new system is sent via HTTP; this is more firewall-friendly than the current system, and will automatically take advantage of web-caching proxies installed at ISPs.”

“With the Steam content system that’s been in place for a few years now, if an individual file on disk were modified by a game update, your client had to download the whole file,” said Valve. “That can be painful when the file in question is really large. The new system supports delivering only the differences between the old and new files, meaning game updates will be much smaller overall.”

“These changes have given us an opportunity to write new tools for game developers and content publishers that simplify the process of both publishing and updating a game on Steam. Simplifying the publishing process means it takes the partner and us less time to ship each product, so we can ship more stuff to more users.”

The new system will also allow Valve to build “several new features” requested by the community, which will be implemented in a new client update. Some of the features includes download scheduling, bandwidth throttling, title prioritization and downloading updates while gaming and installing it after exit.

Soon, Dota 2 will be delivered using it. In the meantime, if you’d like to try out this new content system you can do so right now; if you download a 1280×720 (HD) trailer from the store, it will happen via the new content system. Give it a try!