hi!
I’m trying to create a game that should be able to deal with many many keyboard keys pressed at once.
Currently my keyboard starts to “system beep” when I press and hold more than 3 keys at once. Also, Unity won’t register more than 3 keys pressed at once.
However what I need is that Unity can deal with about 40 keys pressed at one given time. Is there an easy solution for this?
I remember writing a “keyboard handler” back in the old days (MSDOS) that would handle all my keyboard input. That worked fine in MSDOS, but I’m clueless on how to achieve something like that nowadays with all these fancy operating systems like windows and stuff 
Is there maybe a plugin I can use with Unity to replace the default keyboard handler used in windows? (I assume there is a default keyboard handler in windows)
well anyways, any help would be greatly apreiciated!
Buy a very expensive keyboard and warn anyone who plays the game that they will need one too.
Seriously, that’s the only way. The limitations you refer to are restrictions of the keyboard itself. There’s nothing Unity can do because most keyboards just aren’t designed to handle more than 2 or 3 simultaneous keypresses.
thans for the help!
I’ve been reading on some forums about keyboards, I fear you are right 
The old-school keyboard-handler I made so long ago got around the problem of the keyboard buffer filling up (because keys were pressed down for a long time). However they probably didn’t solve the problem that only 3 keys can be pressed at once (on my keyboard).
Apparently it differs from keyboard to keyboard and also it differs WHICH keys you press at once.
aargh
do you have any examples of keyboards that can handle 40 keypresses at once? How will I recognize these divinde pieces of hardware?
Are you sure it will work with Unity?
By the way what I’m thinking about doing is:
- buy 10 competition joysticks (digital: 8-way joysticks with 2 buttons)
- hook them up to a USB keyboard
- make a single-screen multiplayer game for 10 players for expositions and stuff
I don’t know of any keyboards that support 40 keypresses at once, no. A good gaming keyboard from Razer, for example, might support up to ten. You would need to contact the manufacturers with your precise requirements and see if they have anything which matches up.
I’m not really well versed on the use of joysticks on PC’s. Why do they have to be connected to a USB keyboard? Can you not get joysticks of the kind you want with a USB interface and hook them up to a 10 port USB hub? Apologies if these are stupid questions, just thought it might be worth tossing ideas around.
apparently the “legendary Northgate OmniKey Keyboard” has no limit on simultaneous keypresses at all. It goes for about $400 on ebay…
A USB hub with 10 ordinary joysticks connected to it would work as well, but will Unity be able to deal with that? So far I’ve only tried 4 xbox controllers at once.
The trick with the keyboard is that it will work with Unity easily: all I have to do is read out the “keypresses” from the modified keyboard. For example:
q = joystick 1 left
w = joystick 1 right
e = joystick 1 up
r = joystick 1 down
t = joystick 1 button 1
y = joystick 1 button 2
a = joystick 2 left
etc
I have no concrete plans yet, just looking at the possibilities…
Ok… i gotta ask. what would you need that many keypresses at the same time for???
i have ten fingers only.
Even if you support multiple players, there’s only so much room on a keyboard.
@Ramen, as I wrote above: I want to solder 10 joysticks to the keyboard and by doing that “map” the joystick inputs to normal keyboard-keys