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Subject: Multi-processor chess (Windows flavors)

Author: Bruce Ramsey

Date: 12:27:03 03/08/00


Hi - A couple of (Windows flavor) multi-processor chess questions, please.
Apologies if these have all been belabored before, just point me to the faq if
so, please...

1) So far I've spotted Deep Junior and Crafty as presently supporting multiple
processors for Windows NT/2000.  What others, if any, presently exist?

2) What others, if any, are known to have plans for multiple processor support
in the (hopefully not-too-distant) future?

3) As an NT/Win2k user, I'd like a little control over who is hogging how much
of which processors.  Do Deep Junior/Crafty allow the end-user control over the
priority of the engine threads running on the different processors?

Reason for 3) is that if the developer simply A) counts available cpu's, then B)
spawns that many engine threads, then C) jacks all engine threads to
real-time-critical-highest thread priority, well then, lots of chess
calculations will happen, but nothing else will.  For example, if connected to a
chess server, there will be no cpu cycles avialable to receive/send moves
from/to the chess server.

For example on a 2-CPU system, I'd hope to be able to do something like set the
thread priority of one engine thread to real-time-critical-highest, but leave
the priority of the other engine thread at normal priority.  And I'd like the
user interface for the chess program to be on its own thread, which I'd also set
at normal priority.  Then it's up to me as the operator to use the
mouse/keyboard as little as possible so as to rob as little as possible from the
engine thread running at normal priority.

Have I stopped making sense yet? :-)

thanks, Bruce



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