Most of the guides I’ve read say that to perform a move, you have to press the punch/kick button at the same time as the last direction input. So for Ryu’s hadouken, you would press punch at the same time as pressing left/right. However, I’m playing on a keyboard and am having trouble doing this. Does this rule not apply for keyboard users? because it works and is easier to press the punch as a separate input.
First: Get a proper controller! Either gamepad, arcade stick or hitbox. Any of those are comfortable to play with.
To answer your question:
SFIV has a lot of input leniency. Hitting a button a couple of frames sooner or later is not a big deal. In SF2 you had to be a lot more exact with your inputs or you wouldn’t get anything out except for a whiffed normal.
You should still aim for perfection because using sloppy inputs can result in dropped combos, accidental supers and lots of other horrible things that cost you matches.
So I guess you mean that it is correct to press the punch/kick button at the same time as the last directional input then? I was wondering this as well and it could be why I can’t execute certain special moves (I assumed the P or K button should be after the directional input because when I tried inputting them at the same time it seemed to never work).
Think of it as a motion followed very quickly by a button, rather than the first half of the motion then the ending of the motion plus the button at the same time. For a quarter forward, for instance, it doesn’t have to be down-downforward-forward+button, there’s a leniency period after you complete the motion that you can still press the button.