Four Controllers, Four Dongles: Paying the PC Tax

On a console, a fourth player costs you a fourth controller. Hold the pair button, wait for the light, play.

On my PC, the fourth player cost me a USB hub.

I run four different 2.4 GHz controllers, and each one talks only to the receiver it came with. Four controllers, four dongles, four USB ports, and my PC doesn’t have four to spare. So all four receivers plug into a Sabrent four-port powered hub, and the hub takes one port on the PC.

If you want to connect multiple wireless controllers to a PC with too few USB ports, that’s the whole answer: a powered USB hub, one port on the PC, every receiver on the hub.

Why a powered hub

If you’re switching from console to PC and want more than one wireless controller, a powered hub is the way to go, for two reasons.

One USB port on the PC becomes four, so the keyboard and mouse keep theirs. And it’s powered: a bus-powered hub splits one PC port’s power among everything plugged into it, while a powered hub brings its own supply.

The hub also gets the receivers out from behind the PC. The back of a metal case facing a wall is a poor spot for a 2.4 GHz radio, and USB 3 ports leak noise in the same 2.4 GHz band the controllers use; Intel wrote a white paper on it in 2012. A hub on a cable puts the receivers out where the controllers are.

Why not Bluetooth?

My controllers do Bluetooth too. On Bluetooth they cut out and lag, and they disconnect all the time. I don’t have the bandwidth to test why. The 2.4 GHz receivers have been more reliable, so the dongles stay.

Deconsoling your life has a tax

I left console for the unlimited possibilities of PC games, and that part holds up. But connecting multiple controllers to one system is a battle console gaming still wins, and it isn’t something you think about until you switch. Then the little things add up: a hub to buy, a port to give up, four little receivers instead of none. That’s the PC tax.

Still worth it. I’d like the bill to be smaller.

One brand already fixed it

Microsoft’s Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows pairs up to eight Xbox controllers through one USB adapter, or four controllers with chat headsets, or two with stereo headsets. One port, eight players.

It only speaks Xbox. Everyone else’s 2.4 GHz controller still brings its own receiver, so my hub stays.

I wish the rest of the industry would copy it: one standard, one USB receiver for every 2.4 GHz controller in the room, whoever made it. One can dream.

If you’re making the switch

• Count your controllers before you count your USB ports. Each 2.4 GHz controller needs its own receiver.
• Get a powered hub, not a bus-powered one, and put it where the controllers can see it.
• If all your controllers are Xbox controllers, one Xbox Wireless Adapter replaces the whole pile of dongles.