pressing many keys at the same time

thats why I use an keyboard from 1980

evenif some people always bother: "OWTFGM YOU HAVE NO WINDOWS KEYY!!!!!1111oneoneone"

I simply offer the possibility to map the keys where you want. Just find a combination which plays good and you're fine.

I have two usb game pads

another way; try two PSP games pad with parallel port. At present I test with two, if it works with 4 there, I would make a workshop(studio).

I just found that any triangle on my keyboard, such as wa-s beeps, while as-d does not. Apparently any triangle beeps.

Try this in your code:
player.move_x = key_w - key_s;
player.turn = key_a - key_d;

See if that makes a difference...

Now I have only 1 USB gamepads... I broke one when playing virtua fighter evolution.

My hint is:
A) Make your game turn based
or B) Use the combination of keys for several actions:
for example: A turn left, S turn right, A&S move straight. There are multiplayer games in the web which work like that. Its fantastic, because they knew that problem but wanted to make a mega multiplayer game playable on one PC. That means, the used for player one keyboard, for player 2 keyboard for player 3 mouse and for player 4 joypad. The controls work like that: key 1 = move left, key 2 = move right, key 1 & 2 jump

That means the player with mouse can walk left when pressing mouse 1 and walk right when pressing mouse 2. When he presses mouse third (some horrible mouses have no third button - so they made the mouse 1 & 2 to jump) he jumps.

Lol, very clever, eventhough such approaches tend to waste my mouses fast, big button smashing on the mouse you know ... Lag ... a bit more smashing, slightly frustrated, more lag and bang, a broken mouse ...

Cheers

There is also a limit to how many simultaneous key presses windows will recognize. Another solution you could use would be letting one player use the mouse for movement. So you could set controls to be something like this:

Mouse player:

Move Mouse up = thrust
Move mouse down = brakes
move mouse left = rotate left
move mouse right = rotate right

LMB = fire laser
RMB = Torpedo

LMB+RMB = Cloak
RMB+MMB = Hyperspace

and so on. You should be able to detect both mouse buttons down at the same time (I know you could with DirectInput), and if not, let player one use the wasd and such, let player 2 use the num pad.

Joystick is the solution, but also you can try usb keyboard, or special gaming keyboard sorry,i haven't try them, but they can be solution