Gamedevs can only count to 3!

[Npl]

Just tried out Painkiller: OD, and to my discomfort it doesnt support the 4th and 5th Button of my mouse. Which is enough to make a good action-game horrible for me, I hate keeping track of buttons on the keyboard - Its not as problematic for Strategy-games.
The game certainly aint alone in that regard, to be blunt, its actually quite rare to find a game that supports mapping of 4 or more mousebuttons.

Heres a short list of games which have/had trouble with it (im sure i could dig up alot more if id check couple older games & other genres):

UT2004: Dint support >3 Mousebuttons upon release, patched in later
UT3 (Demo): Supports 4(!) MouseButtons - 5th is reported as Mouse 4 aswell
Painkiller: Overdose (Demo): Tops out at Mousebutton 3
Stranglehold (Demo): Same
Lost Planet: Same
Infernal: Same
Stalker: Same, atleast with release version (taken from a quick google search)
Bioshock: Same AFAIR (only played it briefly at a friends)

So, whats the big issue, I did a plugin for an Emulator somewhere around 2000/2001 and reading the DirectInput8-Specs it was just natural&obvious to support 8 Buttons, why is this still a problem with 4&5 Button Mouses being quite common these days?

PS. I know I could use a tool to bind Key to the Mousebuttons, but I dont like them and Im not looking for workarounds but nagging at the problem itself.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I know I could use a tool to bind Key to the Mousebuttons, but I dont like them and Im not looking for workarounds but nagging at the problem itself.

That's what I always end up doing.

 

[Npl]

That's what I always end up doing.

I did that years ago and it introduced a very notable lag in games (up to seconds when in Fullscreen). Surely it would be better now as the overhead is smaller (relatively) on faster CPUs, but its still an ugly crutch.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I've never really had a lag issue with it, a revo using ubertools to rebind it.

 

[Skrying]

If you have a Logitech mouse (which any sane person should) then the driver software will easily, and with no lag, be able to rebind the button to a key. Honestly it's not much of a hassle for the ease of use it provides. Many games don't support 4 and 5 and I long ago just binded the mouse keys to P and L.