Welcome to the fascinating world of keyboards.

search nkro

How can a full mechanical keyboard not fix this problem? Isn't it caused by the way the wiring works inside the keyboard, that sometimes a key combination looks exactly like another combination due to wires overlapping and whatnot?

It's the lack of wires, each costing 2 cents. Companies cheap out on those since the beginning of time, then they started cheapening out in other aspects such as switch types.

For twister, it's not the game's fault, windows or germany (lol) but a defect present in 99.99% of keyboards and that arises using certain key combinations. For example that's why even current games come with WASD + ctrl + shift + spacebar as the default keys, or why the letter E is missing in so many documents (happens a lot in spanish). The only way to get rid of it completely is to buy a new keyboard that specifically deals with the issue.

What makes a mech keyboard mechanical is the switch type, the better ones being more expensive. Not all these expensive keyboards fix the issue, by fitting all the necessary wires and whatnot (it's a bit more complex), because it is not directly related to the switch type do. At the same time this is fixed in some non mech kbs.

In the end it's best to google specific models, keyboard nkro. Brands and recommendations are in geekhack, overclock and others site.

The only thing to be aware of are these gaming keyboards that feature pseudo nkro or whatever it's called, in which ghosting is prevented in some keys and combinations but not them all, so keys can still get stuck (actually those specific keys get stuck easier than regular kbs) and that is pretty awful if you ask me.

edit: forgot that the rule of thumb is full nkro can only be achieved using the ps/2 port, otherwise the limit is 6 keys at the same time plus modifiers. Nowadays some achieve full nkro on usb. Doesn't matter much really, unless maybe playing piano on your kb and even then you could gain some keys with the modifiers.


edit2: just now I visited gh after about two years and it's filled with kids :/ . Mech keyboards are now offered by gaming brands, most of which suck, so it's natural that its target audience discovered the main sites.
Isn't that always the transition? here on esr there's tons of threads about mice made by non quakers, then in some years head-fi will be filled with beats guys that will start buying decent headphones and so on. Actually In all three products buying quality stuff is almost mainstream in japan and this transition happened years ago, as they live in the future.

What makes a mech keyboard mechanical is the switch type

Yes I knew this, but I thought that a normal rubber dome keyboard (does rubber dome even differ from a membrane one? I thought they were pretty much the same thing), the entire mechanism was a big clusterfuck of problems - the switch only works with that type of wire grid (I also don't know what the big piece of plastic with all the wires on it is called), so it's not possible to make a rubber dome keyboard with NKRO, just as it's not possible to make a mechanical keyboard with that type of plastic grid layer.

This was just my understanding of the situation. I never did much research, so it's only my application of logic to my limited knowledge. I guess it just doesn't make sense to me that one would use high quality switches but cheap out on other areas - I'm totally fine with cheap keyboards existing for people who don't need to spend $100+ on a keyboard, but there should be no in-between.

As for NKRO with only PS/2, my keyboard advertises NKRO for USB and PS/2. I was wondering if there was any way to see what keys are being held down, just so I can see for myself that every single keystroke is being sent and received (I've been told multiple times that USB simply cannot have NKRO, but I don't think Ducky are the kind of company to lie about this, or mechanicalkeyboards.com the site to be wrong about it). It sounds fun :D

Aqua key test. That's what I used back in the day, no idea if it was replaced by something better.

There are some kbs that do nkro under usb. The very first thing that came up in google says ducky does, and then something about low speed device that's just icing on the cake..
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=37567.0

I have no idea how to check if my keyboard is low speed or high speed or whatnot.

I also don't know where to find the Aqua test. The link somewhere on this page is down, and the forum post I found on the same site while searching Google also doesn't have it (it was attached to the post but isn't there any more).

I found the Aqua test.

My osmium achieves nkro over usb as well.

Interesting. I didn't realize keyboards could be optimized for wasd, especially since the ones I have aren't 'gaming' keyboards. Pretty annoying since if you think about it wasd is far from the optimal position.

they are optimized for asdf, F being index finger in typing style, wasd is a side effect if you will of that :)

only on PS/2 port i think

In the good old days I used the kb in the ps/2 port so it didn't stuck lol, so I report the opposite.

The cheapest way for not having the issue is to not buy a new keyboard and use the modifier keys, like ctrl and shift, because those don't get stuck in any keyboard.

Wrong.
USB still offers up to 6kro which should be fine unless you're using your face to type. If you want an unhealthy long debate weather you should use USB/PS2 try geekhack or overclock keyboard department. Some people are very serious about it.

megaman is on to something, a lot of modern "gaming" keyboards only have certain clusters (commonly WASD etc) which prevent ghosting, some companies (Corsair) even go as far and only use cherry switches on certain keys and rubber dome on other less likely to be used for gaming/typing.

@twister which cherry model are you using? if you're up for some educational fun, open it up and check the components.

Pretty sure some keyboards have achieved full NKRO over usb. Usually by pretending to be multiple keyboards to the OS.

With that said, use PS/2 if you can. It was designed for plugging in keyboards and even after a billion years it still does this job better than USB.

Actually, you are correct here. Never knew how exactly it is achieved, but it does make sense when you put it forward like that. Just tested my own keyboard, and the test I did reports it to be nkro despite being a USB keyboard.

As megaman said, it's all due to clusters and key-rollover. USB is only capable of 6, is mostly capable of only 6-KRO, but as Venim has said, it's possible over USB as well. With PS/2, you can achieve NKRO, but it greatly depends on how the clustering is managed. I can tell you from experience of using PS/2 membrane keyboards when I was a young lad, being locked out of many, useful, different combinations, despite using some fairly expensive PS/2 'gaming' keyboard back in the day (think it was an upmarket sidewinder, but it was over 10 years ago, I can't remember now).

Reminds me of playing THPS2 back in the day, not being able to do the UP+LEFT tricks, grabs/flips/grinds, it did not matter. It's simply how the wires in the cluster are organised.

I tried your situtation on my Gigabyte Aivia Osmium, and I had zero problems. I would normally recommend this keyboard to anyone, but as it's a specific need of yours,i.e. that certain key combination is in your config, I'd say keep it on your list, should you ever decide to buy a new one.

EDIT** I just used this to check for n-kro. Have a go yourself.

If you don't want to pay out of the butt for a high-nkro keyboard, buy a M$ Sidewinder X4. Mine cost $30 shipped from Newegg. (I bought it open box.) It passes the

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG

test.

Seems to cost upwards of 35€ in Germany :|
It's still quite cheap but I guess I will stick to wasd for now.

This was hard to actually do :D

The double-shift?

The inline image thing was weird. I tested multiple keypresses and the most I could do was around 25.

was checking the date of this thread multiple times and if this was actually a fake twister who was posting. :D

:O)?

this subject is so old already, that i couldn't believe that you never read about it before.

Oh I was aware of nkro/6kro. But I didn't realize that there could be problems with only 3 simultaneous key presses on regular keyboards, especially since I didn't run into any issues while playing with wasd.

I found it out when I was playing with my wireless keyboard. Forward + Left + Jump was fine, but Forward + Right + Jump was not possible. At first I thought it was the game (I think it was Bioshock), but then I tested it in a text document. Bullshit logitech K340.

I play Quake with this, works nice and button settings are cool. I can switch to every important weapon (with the thumb) and can move to every direction.

That's going to give me nightmares before bed.

Night :(

Tell me which combinations to press and I will test it on my MS Comfort curve 2000. I had ghosting issues on several keyboards, but not on this one. Costs about €20. Will try to remember and test the combinations above.

Hey, read up ghosting, nkro,...:

http://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/anti...ained.mspx

^ has a small online application to test how many keys you can press at once, in what combinations.

Other forums, such as geekhack are valuable ressources.

Try key mapping software and mapping different letters to the keys, then swap the keys around to correspond with the new maps.

It might affect your typing quickly but might (prolly not) get around your problem.

http://www.tucows.com/preview/327616

Ofc it won't work.

Didn't expect such a thread from twister.

99% of the keyboards just have optimized matrices around WASD, get a sidewinder x4 or a mechanical KB for full 6KRO

2 KRO is the standard!

IBM SK-8820. Black, PS/2. I get mine for 2 $ back in the day, another 4 of them for free.

Durable (I mean DURABLE), looks conservative and I can strafe jump to any direction while crouching, changing weapon and spamming smiley at the same time.

is it mechanical?

No.