Keyboard for Doom/Heretic/Hexen etc

fish99 · 22 Apr 2009 at 14:48

Hi,

I'm looking for a keyboard that can handle a lot of simultaneous key presses.

It's for the old Doom games, including Heretic and Hexen and it needs to be able to handle right alt (strafe) + right shift (run) + cursor up (forward) and cursor left and right (and possibly even control too), all at the same time.

I already have the Saitek Eclipse 2 and a Razer Lycosa, and neither of these meet the above requirement. Same thing with several other older keyboards I have (Logitech Internet Navigator etc).

I realize it's a long shot, but I'm hoping someone here still plays these games and has a keyboard that works 100% with these games.

Thanks in advanced,
Simon.

fish99 · 23 Apr 2009 at 12:22

I seem to remember Cherry keyboards met this criteria when I used to play these games 10 years ago, but whether they still do now I dunno. Don't suppose anyone has one?

bluetoon · 23 Apr 2009 at 14:51

Hello, what about the G15 keyboard from logitech? That has g keys down the left side which you can program several different keystrokes to and create different profiles for different games. I've got one, although i havent used the g keys yet, but may be worth a look!

Ch3m1c4L · 23 Apr 2009 at 15:58

g keys are for macros, and he will be controlling his persona in an FPS world, which will mean he wont always want to press all of those buttons at once, but there will be times. G15 might, I could confirm tonight if i remember.

fish99 · 23 Apr 2009 at 20:39

Ch3m1c4L said:
g keys are for macros, and he will be controlling his persona in an FPS world, which will mean he wont always want to press all of those buttons at once, but there will be times. G15 might, I could confirm tonight if i remember.

Yeah that's correct, unfortunately macros don't help in this instance, but I appreciate the help.

The best way to test with your G15 if you get chance (assuming you have any of these games) is hold right alt and right shift (strafe and run) then hold cursor up (forward) and see if left and right cursor still do anything (they should make you strafe left and right while running forward), and if they do try right ctrl (shoot) as well.

Finding keyboards that can do all this has always been a problem.

VeNT · 23 Apr 2009 at 21:04

iirc it's not the keyboard, windows/dos can only cope with x key presses at a time, it's something to do with the buffer?

fish99 · 23 Apr 2009 at 22:51

VeNT said:
iirc it's not the keyboard, windows/dos can only cope with x key presses at a time, it's something to do with the buffer?

I dunno, I've definitely had keyboards in the past that could handle the full 5 simultaneous key presses needed for Doom. That was back in the days of running games under Dos though.

Ch3m1c4L · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:23

cant test properly as i dont have the games, but it seems to allow a lot of keys to be pressed, i can hold L shift, L ctrl, w, a and still press tab at the same time, could easily confirm about more/others though

fish99 · 6 May 2009 at 19:19

Ch3m1c4L said:
cant test properly as i dont have the games, but it seems to allow a lot of keys to be pressed, i can hold L shift, L ctrl, w, a and still press tab at the same time, could easily confirm about more/others though

Thanks. The odd thing is my Razer can also handle those keys you mention, but yet it can't do right alt, right ctrl, cursor up and cursor left. I'm just gonna try a Cherry keyboard and if that's no good, I'll play them on mouse+WASD.