Hi there and thankyou for reading.

I have four pseyes on 4 trippods with the extended cables.
I am having the issue Play station eye warning, More than 2 cameras connected to the same usb controller #1

I believe my pc has 2 usb ports on the front which are busted,
6 usb slots in the back, and 2 usb 3.0 slots slightly underneath.
The 3.0 slots light up the cameras but do not actually pick them up in ipi recorder.
The 3.0 slots also do not even recognize my mouse or keyboard.

(I can get a pic of the device manager if need be)

I keep getting the warning! More than 2 cameras connected to the same usb contoller.

I have moved the ps eye usbs around in different orders, but no change.

Solutions?

So far I think getting a PCI E 2.0 usb card would help and is my only option.
They are not expensive although I did think I had enough!!

If anyone has any ideas/ confirmation/support - please help.

Many thanks in advance.

Hi

Usually, front ports are connected to one controller, and back ports to another. However, this may be different in your PC.
If you say that the front ports are busted, then it's possible you're left with only 1 USB 2.0 controller working.
And USB 3.0 controller may have compatibility issues with PS Eye. See known compatibility problems in the bottom of this article:
http://wiki.ipisoft.com/USB_controllers

To find out which port is connected to which controller, switch Device Manager to "Devices by Connection" view. Take a single camera and connect it sequentially to all USB ports. Each time, watch in Device Manager under which USB controller node appears the camera node.

If you confirm that there is only 1 USB controller suitable for connection PS Eye cameras, then you'll need an extension card. Usually, PCI cards are USB 2.0, and PCIe cards are USB 3.0. You can choose what best suits you. Just be aware of compatibility issues - use the mentioned above compatibility table to avoid buying incompatible USB controller.

Is this any good to connect 4 PS Eye cameras ? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815158035

At 60fps - most probably not. At 40-50 fps - maybe, we've heard from our users that they could connect 4 cameras to 4 port controller at 50fps.
Also note that this card is based on NEC USB 2.0 chip, which had known performance problems in the past. Though, the chance is that this is a newer revision of the chip with the bug fixed.
If you are looking for a PCI Express card, I'd recommend you to go with USB 3.0 (again see the table on possible incompatibilities). Then you could also use it to connect the upcoming Kinect 2 sensors, which require USB 3.0.

Hmm.. What would you recommend for 60 fps capture? I don't have free USB ports to accommodate 4 cameras :/ So I was thinking that perhaps an expansion card would work well, or USB hub.

Thanks!

For 60fps, the rule is 2 cameras per USB controller.
How many built-in controllers do you have (look in Device Manager)?
Do you need only 4 cameras to work in total?

USB hub may help if your only problem is insufficient USB ports.
You can install several expansion cards if you have enough free slots.

Here is my Device Manager:

http://i.imgur.com/1UCXGER.png

How many do I have? (while I built my own PCs, I never really bothered to learn much about what is what in device manager :P )

So if I want to add 4 extra ports, I'd need 2 PCIe USB 2.0 cards with 2 USB ports per each?

http://i.imgur.com/pXf7YTC.jpg

I looks like I have 2 USB ports on my mobo empty. If I add this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 2V512U3454, I'll get 4 ports for 4 cameras.

Would that allow me to capture in 640x480 60 fps using 4 PS Eye cameras?

You have 2 USB 2.0 controllers. That should be enough for 4 PS Eye cameras at 60 fps, you just need to get 4 free USB ports (2 per USB controller). You may also need to shutdown/disconnect other data-consuming USB devices (like USB drive, Wi-Fi dongle, web camera) while recording to get full USB bandwidth for PS Eyes.


Yes, this panel would add USB ports to existing controllers. However, it will be suitable for 4 cameras only if these 2 motherboard's ports belong to different USB controllers. Then you'll have 2 ports on panel connected to one controller, and 2 ports - to another.

Thankyou very informative

For my shopping list, is there a list for compatible 3.0 controllers?
Where is the table on possible incompatibilities?

I am looking for the best setup I can get.

Also currently, I only have 1 working usb 2.0 controller.

I was planning to have a play, and test it out. Should I use 4 Cameras at lower resolution or just 2 cameras? Its simply to try things out.

Cheers