Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 10:51:31 02/11/02
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On February 11, 2002 at 13:22:50, K. Burcham wrote: [snip] >Like I said before, if we monitor the cpu usage, and it is 100% on both >machines, and both programs have same amount of nodes per move posted in >analysis, then I can conclude that the processor in the larger mhz machine >is busy doing something---the question was what are some of the tasks that this >larger mhz machine is doing while running a chess program that do not allow it >to post more nodes per move? (of course assuming that both systems are not >burdened with any background software running, or non chess related tasks >consuming cpu) I think I understand your question now. Take a slow searcher like MChess -- It might take 10,000 machine cycles to examine one node. But the work it does perform is throwing away useless examinations of valueless nodes. Another program might examine a node in only 100 machine cycles. But it is obviously not being nearly as choosy about what it looks at. The slow searchers spend more compute power deciding what nodes need examination. The fast searchers spend less time on that and make up for it with the increased speed. Two different approaches but both arrive at the same goal. Both CPU's are pegged when analyzing for both the slow and fast searcher. But they are busy computing different things. The slow searcher is saying, "Should I bother with this? No. How about that? No. Maybe this one? Nope... Aha! Here's a good one. I better check it carefully." The fast searcher is saying "Here's one -- check it. Here's one -- check it..." Now, even with the fast searcher, it won't blindly examine all the nodes. It is just that it examines a lot more but is less selective about what it looks at.
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