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Strange Direct Input Problem: Any Advice?

Started by EpicCupcakes Apr 18, 2012 at 9:08 PM 3 replies 1.8k views

Original Post

Apr 18, 2012 at 9:08 PM

Hello all. I just found a strange problem in Direct Input that I was hoping someone could shed some light on. I was programming the controls for a simple shooter in C++, DirectX 9, and Visual C++ 2010 Express when I ran into a problem: Direct Input would not register my Up-Left and Down-Right arrow inputs. At first I had no idea why, but with some testing I found that, for whatever reason, when the Spacebar was being pressed (spacebar being my game's shoot command), Direct Input would not register those two directions hybrid, and only those two hybrid directions.

I changed my code a bit, to that instead of having to turn with the arrows and shoot with spacebar, you simply turn and shoot with the arrows. This was a fine solution, but unfortunately my game requires a certain amount of accuracy which is ruined by the new control scheme.

Can anyone shed light on why I Direct X can't sense DIK_UP, DIK_LEFT, and DIK_SPACE, or DIK_DOWN, DIK_RIGHT, and DIK_SPACE at the same time, or is it something I've failed to do? I notice that a lot of programmers usually use some sort of DEFINE statement on their keys before working with DirectInput, which I did not do, and I haven't tested defining the keys to see that solves the problem, as I don't know how.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

EpicCupcakes

Apr 19, 2012 at 3:20 AM

I apologize. I found the solution to the problem, and it wasn't a directx or direct input problem at all. It was actually just a type-casting error(I was using ints when I should have used floats). Sorry for the false alarm.

dave

Apr 19, 2012 at 8:42 AM

It's been said in many DirectInput threads that you shouldn't actually be using it. I don't have the link but this is something Microsoft themselves have said. You can usually do everything you want through windows messaging alone.

21st Century Moose

Apr 19, 2012 at 10:09 AM

One advantage of DirectInput - at least for mouse input - is that you don't get mouse acceleration applied when you use it. This is still not resolved with either Raw Input or Windows messaging, and - depending on the requirements of your game - may very well be preferable.

yckx

Apr 19, 2012 at 3:37 PM

Yes, Microsoft has stated that Windows messaging generally should be preferred for normal keyboard and mouse input. I don't think I'd use DirectInput unless I was adding joystick support (or gamepad or what have you).

Also note that most keyboards have an issue in which certain keys wont register if certain other keys are being pressed. I forget what it's called, but it's an inherent limitation of the hardware design and no amount of code can fix it. Gaming keyboards tend to suffer less from this flaw, and configurable key bindings can be used as a work-around.

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