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gggmork

Can't press up/left/alt simultaneously

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The control scheme I've become accustomed to (though probably not best for speed runs since actions are limited) is left hand on space,alt,m,',' (use, fire,hold strafe, hold run respectively) and right hand on arrow keys (forward,backward,turn).

I CAN press any of the 3-key combinations simultaneously:

-up,right,alt
-down,right,alt
-down,left,alt

However, for:

-up,left,alt

when I hold up and left, alt won't register (or if I hold up and alt, then left won't register/etc)

So I try a second keyboard... same thing.
I exit zdoom and happen to notice that when you press alt with a window open it makes 'file' bold. So this was a good opportunity to test the up,left,alt outside of zdoom... but same thing. Pressing up,right,alt/etc makes 'file' bold... but once again up,left,alt doesn't register ('file' doesn't become bold).

Fine, now I go to a completely seperate laptop and try it.. same thing. (this computer is xp, the laptop is windows 2000).

I wonder if this has to do with some sort of 'hotkey' in most windows or something (I know for example that I accidently made the entire screen rotate while playing in zdoom because some hotkey was accidently pressed (luckily I found out how to disable that hotkey).

Also, if I change fire to some other key like 'k' instead of alt, it works fine.

And that's my amazing story.

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The arrow keys are notorious for this sort of thing. In fact, this is what motivated me about 10 years ago (and probably millions of others as well) to switch to WASD in place of the arrow keys.

I would suggest that you accept the limitations and come up with a new control scheme.

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AndrewB said:

switch to WASD

No!!!!!
use ESDF instead!!! you get to use A with your free finger that way!

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Yeah, I read how many use wasd or similar (esdf). I tried it briefly which felt awkward because I'm not used to it, but guess I should permanently switch.

Does anybody know the exact controls the best hell revealed speed runners use? That's what I should use I guess since they're obviously proven to be good controls. I guess they all use the mouse (I never did). esdf would take care of strafing/forward/backward I guess and the mouse could turn/fire/use. But what are you supposed to use as a hold-run button? Or do they use the 'always run' feature (and is using 'always run' considered cheating in speed runs?). Or maybe they use a 3 button mouse, or put 'use' to the left of the esdf or something and have the mouse do run and fire.

(oh yeah, I see how the pinky finger is free to use 'a' now as a fifth button (use?). so you use that plus the mouse/ no arrow keys?)

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I realized this a couple years back when I also discovered how to use the strafe key. :P

I didn't really do anything about it until it started to really hinder how I moved. At first I just worked around it, simply moving in a circle fashion by tapping the two keys. Then I decided to switch, so I switched to the numberpad, as I had used it for a few years in my past when an older keyboard didn't have a useable set of arrowkeys. It felt so fast and weird to be able to straferun in the north-west direction, but it's definitely handy. :D

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doom2day said:
No!!!!!
use ESDF instead!!! you get to use A with your free finger that way!

True, though I never liked either too much because the middle finger is a bit to the left, which feels unnatural. I currently use WESD (with my hand placed a bit diagonally), but to do so I had to physically swap my console and Q keys (or Q would quit to DOS when recording in Doom).

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gggmork said:

Does anybody know the exact controls the best hell revealed speed runners use? That's what I should use I guess since they're obviously proven to be good controls. I guess they all use the mouse (I never did). esdf would take care of strafing/forward/backward I guess and the mouse could turn/fire/use. But what are you supposed to use as a hold-run button? Or do they use the 'always run' feature (and is using 'always run' considered cheating in speed runs?). Or maybe they use a 3 button mouse, or put 'use' to the left of the esdf or something and have the mouse do run and fire.

There was an interesting discussion of control set-ups in an old thread in the compet-n forums. As you will see, there is a surprising amount of variation, particularly in the way people implement strafe-50 (not something you should worry too much about until you have a set-up that you are generally happy with, and want to extract that little bit of extra performance). But in general, you can reckon on a WASD-type set-up plus mouse as being the majority preference.

'Always run' can be achieved in vanilla by using joyb_speed 29 in the cfg, and is commonly used by compet-n players, and is not considered cheating. For more information on compet-n rules, see this and this.

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gggmork said:

But what are you supposed to use as a hold-run button? Or do they use the 'always run' feature (and is using 'always run' considered cheating in speed runs?). Or maybe they use a 3 button mouse, or put 'use' to the left of the esdf or something and have the mouse do run and fire.

(oh yeah, I see how the pinky finger is free to use 'a' now as a fifth button (use?). so you use that plus the mouse/ no arrow keys?)


Being a wasd player myself, I use left shift for running (or walking in multiplayer ports). Although you could also assign use to some other key such as space to free one button from the mouse if that's what you prefer.

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I read all those links; thanks. Some have weird setups.

Urgh, using the mouse just doesn't feel like the same doom I've come to love; too analogue. With my previous controls I get in a 'zone' and they're just generally more fun and digital to use for me- though there's disadvantages of slow turning & no strafing while turning.

When using mouse + esdf on Hell Revealed #23, I had trouble even staying alive through the first wave of imps after multiple tries. With my previous setup I can kill the entire first wave of imps on ultra violence until no more come, without passing the first wall, without getting hit once (in about 25 tries anyway which was a fun mini goal I did to compare the two setups- is that easy for most of you?)

Maybe I'll just change the arrow keys to the number keys as those don't produce problems for me, and remain inferior to the inhumanly good compet-n people.

(fucking A- it's always something, just now (since the number pad is next to an enter key) I accidently pressed alt and enter simultaneously which resized the window and messed stuff up causing me to die) I took that stupid key off- people who design keyboards don't seem to care about game playing.)

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gggmork said:
When using mouse + esdf on Hell Revealed #23, I had trouble even staying alive through the first wave of imps after multiple tries. With my previous setup I can kill the entire first wave of imps on ultra violence until no more come, without passing the first wall, without getting hit once (in about 25 tries anyway which was a fun mini goal I did to compare the two setups- is that easy for most of you?)

Don't judge the difference yet; for me even small setup changes make me feel that I've passed from a relatively decent player to a noob that's scared of Zombiemen, and it usually takes me some time before I "master" the new configuration.

Most of the time you have to consciously think of what to press and when in a pinch you get confused, as the brain tries to resort to old reactions you're accustomed to. Eventually, this problem goes away.

One additional thing that may be confusing is vertical movement on the mouse (which you can turn off, in most cases, by setting vertical sensitivity to 0 or by using something like Novert).

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I use WASD but come to think of it (sorry this doesn't have much point with the thread topic but is in this category of controls) how did you guys learn about WASD? I always used the arrow keys and Ctrl to firt with Space as use but I bought and played Battlezone 1 in about 1999 which was the first game that had WASD as default, and I just switched automatically (I was forced to as the game wouldn't accept the arrow keys **)

Just interested in hearing how WASD came about.

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doom2day said:

No!!!!!
use ESDF instead!!! you get to use A with your free finger that way!


Oh my god, I love you!! I'm definitely switching to ESDF for some games.

Csonicgo said:

I use saxz.
s=forward
a=strafe left
x=strafe right
z=backward


That's just weird and really unnatural in terms of directions relating the position on the keyboard... It's also harder to move your fingers around it.

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Nick Perrin said:
That's just weird and really unnatural in terms of directions relating the position on the keyboard... It's also harder to move your fingers around it.

On the contrary, the hand is easy to place diagonally like that. You need a desk that extends a bit beyond the keyboard to make it right (I use WESD and the desk extends a little bit more than an inch beyond the keyboard). WASD and ESDF, on the other hand, are more awkward because not only do you have to keep your hand straight in regard to your body at all times, but also the the middle finger is passing between two keys that are not aligned vertically, and the one on top puts your finger in a position to the left, that is definitely not natural (and since it's "forward", your hand is mostly slightly aligned outward toward the left).

WESD is pretty cool because you have all five fingers comfortably planted over keys (with the pinky over the Q and the thumb over the space bar), and, of those, need to move only the middle finger up and down.

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When playing Doom95 I found a good keyboard-only configuration that you could probably try:

left shift: open
a: strafe left
s: speed/run
d: strafe right
space: fire

arrow keys: moving forward/backwards; turning left/right.

As far as limitations go, with this setup the only problem is sometimes you can't run+strafe+turn+fire (in Doom95, don't know about other ports/games).

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W-Forward
S-Backward
D-Strafe Left
A-Strafe Right

E-Use
Ctrl-Crouch
Space-Jump
LMB-Shoot
RMB-Alt Fire
(Auto run on, else Shift is run)

That is the best way to do it, it is the most flexible and easy to use.

As for ESDF... that just makes no sense. It is impossible to use.

ASZX is a good one, but I wouldn't be able to get use to it. (Ring finger on X, Middle on S (alternates with Z), and index on X)

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On-topic: I believe that most older IBM-style keyboards (the ones using the large, round AT connectors) had a greater number of electronic tracks, allowing them to tramsit more simultaneous keypresses from a particular portion of the keyboard than our modern-day counterparts (there was an interesting article about this somewhere, I think it was on http://www.dansdata.com). Hence why a lot of people who were used to holding Shift or some such key, suddenly find that their favourite control scheme no longer works with today's systems.

See if you can find an old keyboard like this, and grab an AT-PS/2 adapter for it so you can plug it in to your current system.

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Mouse w/high sensitivity
Mouse button 1 for fire
Mouse button 2 for strafe
Mouse button 3 for alt. fire
Scroll to change weapons
Space bar for use
WASD in Doom seems unnecessary.

myk said:

True, though I never liked either too much because the middle finger is a bit to the left, which feels unnatural. I currently use WESD (with my hand placed a bit diagonally), but to do so I had to physically swap my console and Q keys (or Q would quit to DOS when recording in Doom).

Try using a laptop keyboard. That way your hand can lie tilted slightly to the left and the middle finger's movements are more natural. And I suppose a wrist pad which puts your wrist at the same level as the keys could work too.

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Trilinear said:

See if you can find an old keyboard like this, and grab an AT-PS/2 adapter for it so you can plug it in to your current system.


Thanks for the tip.

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BoldEnglishman said:

I use WASD but come to think of it (sorry this doesn't have much point with the thread topic but is in this category of controls) how did you guys learn about WASD?

I didn't learn WASD from anywhere. It just seemed like a natural configuration to me, when I first started to play Doom with a mouse (in 1995). It seems that other people had the same idea...

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LordK said:

I didn't learn WASD from anywhere. It just seemed like a natural configuration to me, when I first started to play Doom with a mouse (in 1995). It seems that other people had the same idea...


Yes, I can confirm that WASD seems to be just "natural" like this. I figured it out on my own and then was astonished to later find that everyone else was copying me.

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It's a predictable DOOM configuration for a mouse user because one initially starts playing with the arrow keys for movement, and in WASD the keys are aligned almost like the arrow keys but are very close to the number keys used for selecting weapons. The space bar is close, to serve as the use key (with the thumb), and the tab key for the automap is within reach of the pinky.

ESDF is very similar, but is (or was, for people using enhanced engines that allow freer setups) less convenient because the F in DOOM is used to toggle the automap's follow mode, so you can't strafe to the right while in automap mode.

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This is an old thread but I re-read myk's post and realized you guys also use an entirely extra thumb than me. That is because you apparently use the same middle finger for BOTH up and down and have a free thumb. My current set up is the numberpad:
middle finger = 8
pointer = 4
ring = 6
thumb = 2
lol

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I really don't know how you can stand using WASD. I don't know if it's just me, but whenever I try it, my middle finger wants to rest between W and E. ESDF is the same way. I can't begin to comprehend how you can use SAXD. The only advantage I can see from using those schemes is quicker access to the number keys for weapon switching.
The arrow keys seem much more sensible to use, especially if you use mouselook.
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z163/3D_Pictures/keyboard4.png

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That is the best way to do it


FOR YOU

As for ESDF... that just makes no sense. It is impossible to use


FOR YOU

Fucking gamers...

Anyway, what i can never get used to with WASD is having both hands next to each other, mouses for me are only for sniping. But then again my computer seems to be one of the "lucky" ones that does recognise arrow keys combined with other ones (There's probably some setting you can use to disable the key shittiness, but unfortunatley it's not labelled "JUST FUCKING RESPOND TO THE KEYS I PRESS, IN ANY COMBINATION AND ORDER").

Hmm, i bet Dan Dare, Buck Rogers etc never had to put up with technology that you had to get "lucky" with for it to work correctly, they had machines that did what they where supposed to, when you told them to, how very 50's, they didnt realise then the future would be run by clueless twats

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I remember back when I used to use a joystick for Doom and I was just horrible. Then after Doom I'd use arrows keys and mouse then WASD then ESDF which I stuck with the longest and makes the most sense to my brain. Fingers are a little closer to the higher numbers and the nub on the F key helps keep me in place though some people just hate the nub.

Don't just copy someone else's controls just because they are good with it. Really think about what you want to do and what makes the most sense to your brain and muscles then try it for a few days to learn it and see if it is going to work for you.

Also try to be consistent.

I have 1 setup for ALL fps and if a game doesn't have a reload function then I don't map anything to my preferred reload key. In a panic in the middle of a fight I don't have time to think about what key is set to what function. I think reload and my muscle memory takes care of it for me.

For most games and more modern games I found my thumb was well under worked so I moved to YGHJ with the nub on the J key so I can use V to duck while I'm free to toggle between jumping with ALT and prone with Space and I found the , key was right at the top of the groove between for easy reload without using my movement fingers so I don't have to choose to reload OR take cover and then reload, I can start reloading while moving in any direction... also C for run where it was as shift in the ESDF set up.

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Trilinear said:

On-topic: I believe that most older IBM-style keyboards (the ones using the large, round AT connectors) had a greater number of electronic tracks, allowing them to tramsit more simultaneous keypresses from a particular portion of the keyboard than our modern-day counterparts (there was an interesting article about this somewhere, I think it was on http://www.dansdata.com). Hence why a lot of people who were used to holding Shift or some such key, suddenly find that their favourite control scheme no longer works with today's systems.

See if you can find an old keyboard like this, and grab an AT-PS/2 adapter for it so you can plug it in to your current system.

Nope. I have an IBM Model M, and one of its disadvantages is the exact problem described in this thread. It loses key presses if you hold down ~4-5 keys simultaneously. Older keyboards are actually worse.

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Yeah, I have one of those. The number of keys that can be combined depends on their combination. Thus I had to discard some options when looking for a setup with a workable sr50.

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gggmork said:

My current set up is the numberpad:
middle finger = 8
pointer = 4
ring = 6
thumb = 2

Same here except I use the same finger for forward and back. After all when are you going to need to press them simultaneously?

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I personally use wasd. E for opening doors, space for jumping if necessary. This varies by game as far as secondary actions, but wasd are always used for moving. I learned about the wasd configuration back in 8th grade or so when I started playing tfc, I was still using arrow keys up to that point. A friend pointed out that it's far easier to use the grenades "f and g" in tfc if I believe, if you used the wasd configuration. It's stuck since, it gives you far easier access to a variety of keys while still keeping your fingers on the movement keys. Any configuration using the alpha keys is good though, since you can remap all the keys around it, I just like the wasd because it keeps your arms at a natural angle between using the keyboard and the mouse, and I can't stand my left middle finger bending right constantly, so wasd works. Plus your pinky is on shift, and I use that in every fps game to control movement speed. I would say try wasd and see if you like it, if not, then use whatever works for you.

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