NFSUnlimited.net

When I downshift, sometimes the car's gearbox sets to neutral. While I try to gear up to second or third, obviously I lose lots of time and speed. I'm completely sure that this problem happens even if I hit the downshift key once or twice.

As in all racing games, these are my keyboard settings:
o- Throttle / brake: q / a
o- Up / down shifting: z / 1
o- Handbrake: spacebar
o- Nitrous / speedbreaker: right alt / right shift

I stopped using left alt and tab for gear shifts ages ago, since windows may switch the game to the desktop. But that's of course not the issue now. Does this happen to any of you? Is it a game bug?

Considered making the leap to an analog controller?

Impossible. My family's computer is about eight years old. NFSUG1 barely moved. I've been playing the latest NfS in a cybercafé since then (yes, this is my sixth year!), so I can enjoy decent graphics. If I can't get past my AMD Athlon chip, I won't buy a steering wheel

Ah ok fair enough. Afraid I can't help though, havent even tried to use keyboard in many years.

Seems like you may come back to this question so a quick thought.

Do you have any access to system settings on that computer? If so, try going into keyboard settings and playing with the keystroke rate. Sometimes it can be set too high or too low (high makes strokes faster, low slows it down). I had same issues, but I use Numpad arrow keys for shifting up and down.