Sorry, I forgot to mention that my first gaming rig was a ZX Spectrum+ (bought circa 1985) and it didn't has joystick.

My first console was a Gameboy Color, bought when I had a Pentium II. So I used keyboard for more than ten years before having a game pad...

Dunno what to tell you then. Maybe not everyone has the same hand-to-eye coordination, although I can't imagine what is hard about using the keyboard. Unless you were very young.

I grew up with both PCs and consoles... Always older stuff because my parents certainly were not going to spend any money to upgrade the computer or buy consoles or the games for consoles for me.

For those of you who don't like the Gravis gamepads do you have overly large hands?

@dr_st . It sounds to me like the rubber dome buttons for the direction control were worn out. When the rubber breaks, that is precisely what starts happening.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-01-18, 18:13:

@dr_st . It sounds to me like the rubber dome buttons for the direction control were worn out. When the rubber breaks, that is precisely what starts happening.

Maybe, but I got them as "New"; they came with the full package and looked unused, but they were probably a decade and a half old at that point. Maybe these things wear with time even when not in use, I don't know. All I can say is that the D-pads felt significantly worse than on any other controller I've tried, before or after. 😐

Zup wrote on 2020-01-18, 15:57:

Sorry, I forgot to mention that my first gaming rig was a ZX Spectrum+ (bought circa 1985) and it didn't has joystick.

My first console was a Gameboy Color, bought when I had a Pentium II. So I used keyboard for more than ten years before having a game pad...

Of course, your keyboard was arguably about the third-worst in history (after the rubber key Speccy and the flat membrane ZX81), so compared to that it's no surprise (digital) gamepads were better.

My frame of reference is the IBM Model M, vastly superior to anything Sinclair (and yes, I started with a ZX81 and rubber key spectrum before getting an Interface 2 for joystick), but despite being legendary for typing on, its strict 2KRO made it less than great for gaming.

Another thing that I've observed over the years is that laptop keyboards are usually terrible for gaming - they are 2KRO, but also the bad kind of it - almost every 3-key combo jams, as do many combination of arrows with modifiers (which are often used in games). There may be exceptions, but I don't know, as I stopped trying to play games on laptop keyboards, and would use an external desktop keyboard instead. Nowadays most of my laptops have docking station setups into which an external keyboard fits nicely.

I never actually used a Model M to figure out if it's the bad kind of 2KRO as on Thinkpads, or a reasonable kind, like on their later desktop keyboards.

dr_st wrote on 2020-01-18, 19:17:

[...]

I never actually used a Model M to figure out if it's the bad kind of 2KRO as on Thinkpads, or a reasonable kind, like on their later desktop keyboards.

It's just as bad:

IBM Model M: 2KRO. Fails ASX, WDE, WAQ, and many others.

Ctrl-Shift-pretty much anything else too. I notice it in single-player OMF, let alone dual player.

Uggghhh... fighting games are absolutely horrible to play with a keyboard.

Every try to do Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 special moves on a keyboard? Or any fighting game with special moves for that matter?

dr_st wrote on 2020-01-18, 17:50:

Dunno what to tell you then. Maybe not everyone has the same hand-to-eye coordination, although I can't imagine what is hard about using the keyboard. Unless you were very young.

I didn't had any problems playing with keyboard, but in some games using a gamepad is better (also keep in mind that most console games and their ports were made with gamepads in mind, so it's no surprise that the best way to control them is using a good quality gamepad).

I mentioned Crusader because it had a complex (but flexible) keyboard arrangement, and using SNESKey allowed me to made a smarter arrangement of controls that made the game way easier. I guess that using a natively supported gamepad (without redefining keys) will be the worst option.

dionb wrote on 2020-01-18, 19:08:

Of course, your keyboard was arguably about the third-worst in history (after the rubber key Speccy and the flat membrane ZX81), so compared to that it's no surprise (digital) gamepads were better.

Between that Spectrum and gamepads I used different keyboards of varying quality (worst ones: Fujitsu). My point is that I DO have experience playing games with keyboards.

dionb wrote on 2020-01-18, 19:08:

My frame of reference is the IBM Model M, vastly superior to anything Sinclair (and yes, I started with a ZX81 and rubber key spectrum before getting an Interface 2 for joystick), but despite being legendary for typing on, its strict 2KRO made it less than great for gaming.

"Hard" mechanical keyboards (there are some mechanical keyboards that are softer than membrane keyboards) have the advantage that don't put unintended keystrokes (i.e.: that Fujitsu keyboard I complained about was so soft that registered keystrokes even when positioning your fingers over it) but it's harder to make rapid sequences. A "medium" keyboard (I liked a Benq 6512-TA, semi-mechanical) is hard enough to not get unintended keystrokes and soft enough to allow rapid sequences. Also, it was 3 or 4KRO.

dr_st wrote on 2020-01-18, 19:17:

Another thing that I've observed over the years is that laptop keyboards are usually terrible for gaming - they are 2KRO, but also the bad kind of it

I've got a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4500 that seems to be NKRO.

But usually they're terrible for different reasons: key softness, size and distance between keys and (in some cases) horrible cursor placement. Also, I have a HP mini laptop that makes difficult to type without moving the mouse (the touchpad is way too sensitive).

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-01-18, 23:53:

Uggghhh... fighting games are absolutely horrible to play with a keyboard.

Every try to do Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 special moves on a keyboard? Or any fighting game with special moves for that matter?

I hope you refer to MAME emulation of MK or SF2... Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2 are very bad PC games, so it's difficult to know if your problems are keyboard-related or game-related.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-01-18, 23:53:

Every try to do Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 special moves on a keyboard? Or any fighting game with special moves for that matter?

Mortal Kombat moves are easier to do on a keyboard than on a gamepad, because they are all tap-based and use cardinal directions only. The only exception is some moves that require 4 or so simultaneous keypresses, which most 3KRO keyboards reject; the DOS versions of the game had many such moves simplified for this very reason.

Street Fighter II is a different thing because it employs diagonals so a pad is better here for sure (an arcade stick is even better). Some Street Fighter moves probably cannot be done on a keyboard at all. This is in part because it doesn't allow keys to be mapped to diagonals (otherwise you could use the numpad corners). I think MAME can bridge that gap but I never tried it seriously.

Zup wrote on 2020-01-19, 09:31:

keep in mind that most console games and their ports were made with gamepads in mind, so it's no surprise that the best way to control them is using a good quality gamepad

It's not a surprise, and it is just wrong. Any game from that era that is digital-only can be controlled just as well with a good quality keyboard. Of course, if the programmers decided on some brain-dead and fixed keyboard assignments, it becomes a problem, but it is not often the case.

Zup wrote on 2020-01-19, 09:31:

Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2 are very bad PC games, so it's difficult to know if your problems are keyboard-related or game-related.

Have to disagree with you again. I don't know which versions you played; maybe you played the buggy betas of Mortal Kombat and the original Street Fighter II. The final DOS versions of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo are excellent (as in - the best home versions, better than any console port). The graphics are lower resolution and fidelity than the arcade, as is the sound, but there are no issues with control or gameplay.

A lot of it is actually user preference. I'd argue there is no 'right away' but the right way for the individual. It's worth noting that while not very popular, there are lines of arcade sticks that actually have no sticks and four directional keyboard keys instead. (Using four arcade buttons for directions is also a thing but less relevant here)