USB Challenge for my Flight Sim Cockpit

[Hellmut1956]

I am not sure if I am right here, so please move to where it might belong!

I am running a PC with an i7 11700k CPU, an ASUS ROG Maximus XIII, and an RTX 3080 GPU. For this cockpit, I need a pretty large number of USB devices. To give you a general view:

5 Monitors, each with a USB port, 8 Saitek Instrument panels, which demand a lot of power from the USB hub, I am powering those each with a 5A power supply. I connect 2 of the Instrument panels to a separate hub, so that just for this, I use 4 USB hubs. Additionally, 4 USB-C hubs without a power supply.§ Saitek pedals, one Honeycomb Bravo power quadrant, and autopilot. Thrustmaster pedals and a Brunner power feedback yoke.
I am working to use Air Manager running on my PC, Air Player on my Raspberry Pi 5, to which I connect 2 Touch monitors and Arduino boards for the many switches in the cockpit of a Cessna 310R from Blackbirg Simulations.

My PC system is fighting the limitations of my hardware, i.e., the RTX 3080 has just 10GB. What I am asking for is your support regarding the USB devices. Is there a way to have an intelligent USB hub that hides the huge number of USB ports that a good friend of mine and myself is stressing on W11 Pro? Additionally, a reason I am investigating and asking for your support is that I am already using all the USB connectors that my motherboard supplies, and as a result,t routing all those cables in the limited space my workshop offers makes organizing them pretty tough for me.

Remember, besides all those USB cables, the 7 connector strips make the situation even worse. and the cables going from them to all those devices in my cockpit! I wish I could have a smart device that manages all the USB traffic to the PC so I could offload this and put it further away from my desk.So that only speed critical USB connectios would have to stay connected to the PC directly.

 

[Martaine2005]

Not sure if this helps, but you can buy 8, 10, 12, …16 way USB powered hubs.
Also mains distribution 10, ..16 way too (PDU).

 

[Hellmut1956]

Thanks for responding. According to the guesses of a good friend, it might be that W11 Pro feels this might challenge W11 Pro.

 

[Harald Kapp]

Is there a way to have an intelligent USB hub that hides the huge number of USB ports that a good friend of mine and myself is stressing on W11 Pro?

No way. USB is a point-to-point connection (Wikipedia). A USB hub presents each downstream port as a unique port to the USB master (PC). Therefore the PC "sees" as many USB ports as there are available via on-board connectors or hub connectors.
As far as I know, there is no (at least no relevant) limit on the number of USB ports in WIndows. A limit may be given by the number of endpoints the USB root controller in your PC can manage (source). You can add additional USB root controllers to your PC using a plug-in pcb (examples in German).

I wish I could have a smart device that manages all the USB traffic to the PC so I could offload this and put it further away from my desk.

Such a device is called a USB device server (example). One Ethernet cable from the PC to the remote device server, many USB cables from the device server to the endpoint(s).

 

[Hellmut1956]

Thanks Harald. I will look for USB root controllers. That is the kind of thing I was looking for. Now I will investigate.

 

[Hellmut1956]

Tomorrow I will get a USB Hub Controller, let me see if that helps. I am also saving money every month to purchase a new GPU. I am thinking about an RTX 5ß80 Super. I am also thinking that a new GPU with photonics. This will reduce the power consumption as it replaces copper connection beween functions in the CPU chip made with copper today that are the places where a lot of power is consumed on the chip. But those might be available by 27.

 

[Sunnysky]

 

[Hellmut1956]

Yes, that is why I wait for the RTX 5080 Super, at least!