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[Merkuri]

This is not a problem unique to Dwarf Fortress, but I wondered if other DF players had encountered it and found a way to fix it.  If this is in the wrong forum, I apologize, but I wasn't sure where to put it.

Short problem description: When playing DF and other games (like Mass Effect) my keyboard keys will seem to stick (not physically - they behave as if they're still being held down) or stop responding.

Details:
This weekend I upgraded my PC from Windows Vista x64 to Windows 7 x32 (I didn't realize the Win 7 DVD was x32 until I had already installed, and it was a free gift from my employer, so I didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, I figured it was still better than Vista).  I started playing DF using a game I had started when the machine had Vista.  Seemed fine at first, but then my N key stopped responding.  I had already checked the noble screen once this session, but I just could not check the noble screen a second time.  Some other keys worked, some didn't.  I went to go look (K) at a huge stack of stone being prepped for atom smashing, and the + key stuck as I was scrolling down the list, looking for things that shouldn't be smashed.  It wouldn't stop scrolling.

I figured I'd go play something else for a while and come back to fix this issue later, so I loaded up Mass Effect, and the same sort of thing was happening.  Control keys would stick or not respond. 

This only seems to happen with games.  I'm typing up this message just fine in Chrome, for example.  This did not happen when I had Vista.  None of my hardware has changed.

I tried all of these with no effect:
* Disabling the Windows "sticky keys" feature
* Upgrading my graphics driver
* Installing latest Windows Updates (including SP1 for Win7)
* Rebooting
* Plugging in a USB keyboard (my regular keyboard is PS/2)

I have very little installed on this machine at the moment.  When I upgraded the OS I opted to do a "Custom" upgrade, meaning it moved all of my files to a new location and did a fresh install, not an upgrade.  I do have Norton 360 installed, which I've seen cause problems with other programs before, but I've never seen it cause keys to stick or not respond, so I haven't attempted disabling it yet.

Anyone have any ideas on what might be causing this?

(FYI, I work in technical support for a software company, so I'm a pro at this sort of thing, but I just can't figure this one out.)

[Sir Leonard III]

It's called lag, whether you want to admit it or not. Even Dwarf Fortress lags a bit.

[Capntastic]

You should move this thread to here -> http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?board=18.0 where people usually answer these questions.

[Merkuri]

Do I have permission to move my own threads?  Or does a moderator have to do that for me?

I really doubt it's lag.  I hit K, use Shift-arrow keys to get to the pile of junk, then the + key to scroll, and the only thing that has a problem with this series of strokes is the + key.  I tap it once (just once!) and it'll start scrolling down the list as if I was holding the key.  It goes, and goes, and goes.  Sometimes it'll stop after 20 items or so, but I've seen it go forever.  Aside from when it stops, this is 100% reproducible each time I start DF.

I had keyboard timing-related problems with DF on my old laptop and I was able to fix them using the init files, but in that case the issue was that DF would think I had pressed a key two or three times when I was only pressing it once.  This time, it seems to think I'm pressing it a bajillion times.

The problem I'm having in Mass Effect is even weirder.  I had been focusing on DF because it was quicker to reproduce, but after beating my head against the issue for a few hours I went back to Mass Effect and studied the problem more closely.  In Mass Effect, none of the keys seem to respond except the Escape key.  I hit W (the "move forward" key) and nothing happens. 

That's not the weird part.  The weird part is that I went into the options and tried to re-map the "move forward" key.  I hit the W key, and 2 appeared in the mapped key section.  I repeated the test (tried to map the W key again) and 3 appeared in the mapped key section.  Each time I tried to map the W key it would actually map a number 0-9, and after 9 it wrapped back around to 0.  o.O

I left it mapped to one of these numbers and went back into the game.  I hit W a few times, and nothing happened at first, then one of the times my vehicle jerked forward a step.  I hit W a few more times, nothing happened, then I jerked forward.  I counted key presses and noticed that each jerk forward was 9 W presses after the last jerk forward.  So Mass Effect thought my W key was sending a different number 0-9 each time it was pressed.  The same thing happened for a few other keys I tried - Mass Effect thought each of them was a cycling 0-9 key.

I'm totally confused now.  These may be two separate issues, though it's very coincidental that I have two games that are having keyboard problems.  Maybe my keyboard is haunted.

[Thief^]

Or just broken.

[Merkuri]

In all seriousness, it's not the keyboard.  I tried a different one and it had the same issue.  Plus, I'm typing just fine with it here.

[Thief^]

Perhaps it's your motherboard's keyboard controller then. Some motherboards natively understand USB keyboards too, so could affect them as well in theory.

The technical term is probably "unspecific hardware failure".

[Merkuri]

This keyboard worked just fine on this same set of hardware when I had Vista, so I find it hard to believe it's a hardware problem.  If anything, it might be a Windows 7 compatibility issue, but then again I don't know why it would affect only games and not browsers or word processors.

[Thief^]

Games often process keyboard input via direct-x instead of via the standard Windows API (which will both access the same standard keyboard driver on the backend). Could be a faulty install of Windows?

[Merkuri]

I got no errors when I installed Windows and everything else appears to be working just fine.

I upgraded to the latest DirectX in an attempt to fix the Mass Effect problem, but that didn't make a difference.  I posted on the Bioware forums to ask about the Mass Effect problem, but no responses yet (not surprising - I only posted 30 seconds ago).

[Thief^]

The only thing I can think of left is motherboard chipset drivers.

[zephyr_hound]

Last time I had "sticky" keys like that, it was a motherboard fault caused by overheating. Drove me nuts, it was intermittent (because it only happened when the machine was hot enough, i.e. when I'd been using it for some time) and the repair guys claimed there was nothing wrong with it at first. Games are hard work for computers. Could it possibly be overheating just enough to cause this when you play games?

[rex mortis]

To me it happens sometimes when I keep a key pressed down (as is common in games, DF included). Sometimes the computer simply fails to respond to the end of input. I figure it's just lag. It tends to happen around the same time my frame rate drops.

[Thief^]

Last time I had "sticky" keys like that, it was a motherboard fault caused by overheating. Drove me nuts, it was intermittent (because it only happened when the machine was hot enough, i.e. when I'd been using it for some time) and the repair guys claimed there was nothing wrong with it at first. Games are hard work for computers. Could it possibly be overheating just enough to cause this when you play games?

She's adamant that it's not any kind of hardware failure.

That said, if you have a motherboard where the chipset has a fan on it, I'd check that it's working properly and not gummed up with dust. Also check for failing capacitors (domed or even split ends), as I have a motherboard which won't recognise keyboards (ps2 or usb) due to bad capacitors causing power problems on the sockets.

[Merkuri]

If it was a hardware/overheating problem I'd think that going back and forth quickly between game and not-game would have caused some "bleed" of the effects one way or another, but it's 100% reproducible in-game and 100% not reproducible out of game.  Heat doesn't appear/disappear instantly, so if it was a heat problem I'd expect that immediately after I quit the game I'd see some sort of odd keyboard issues, but I'm not seeing that.

My chipboard fan is the only one I can actually hear (I know this because a few years ago I had accidentally unplugged the case fans and didn't realize it because I could still hear a fan going which turned out to be the chipboard fan) and I hear it going now, so I assume it's okay.

It would also be a huge coincidence if it was a hardware issue because the problem started exactly when I upgraded from Vista to Win7.  I didn't touch the tower at all except to insert the Win7 DVD, so it's not like I could have accidentally bumped anything to trigger this.

I'm starting to think that it could actually be a lag issue in DF (I'll play with the init files later today to see if I can find some numbers that work, and I'll also try a new fortress that doesn't have ~300 odd animals wandering around killing FPS) and some sort of driver or OS incompatibility in Mass Effect.  I thought the problems were related at first, but on closer inspection they're completely different (DF keys stick, but Mass Effect keys act like completely different keys).