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Subject: Re: Chessmaster's defects

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 21:27:18 03/07/02

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On March 07, 2002 at 14:58:10, John Merlino wrote:

>On March 07, 2002 at 06:56:26, Marc van Hal wrote:
>
>>On March 07, 2002 at 04:46:23, Brian Kostick wrote:
>>
>>>On March 07, 2002 at 04:11:45, Sergei Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>>The King _does_ consume more than it's fair share of CPU resources.
>>>>I checked with several system monitors and Filemon.
>>>>Also, the need for an OPK number requires CM8000 to be run each time you start a
>>>>tournament with The King in the ChessBase GUI or WinBoard.
>>>>If The King of Chessmaster 9000 will still have this copy protection, not many
>>>>tournament organizers will buy it. I won't in any case.
>>>
>>>Sergei,
>>>
>>>  I don't understand what prompted you to post this but of course you are free
>>>to speak your opinion. When I use the 'TaskInfo' program I do not see unfair use
>>>by 'The King' engine, at least nothing notable.
>>>
>>>  To make 'The King' run without an OPK number now that would display some
>>>ingenuity. This OPK business and not being able to use the opening book as
>>>intended (i.e. outside the CM8000 GUI) is all too silly and not worth the time,
>>>imo.
>>>
>>>  As for Chessmaster 9000: Maybe the engine will be embedded in the GUI or be in
>>>a .dll and we will not discuss it here any more? I guess this concept, copy
>>>protection (or not), ect... is all part of what is discussed by the Chessmaster
>>>team and parent company.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>      BK
>>
>
>>Like I told before It is more the clock in Chessmaster which makes the
>>other engines slowdown
>
>The clock makes the engines slow down? Well, all support windows in Chessmaster
>must take SOME CPU time, but even if you open up ALL of the child windows
>(WITHOUT activating a Mentor engine, of course) the engines will only lose a few
>% of the CPU at most.
>
>>And it is treu that the king consumes much cpu speed
>>It was made to use as much cpu speed it can get just read the manuals from  the
>>older versions of Chessmaster but they tried to solve this by  switching ponder
>>of.
>
>I have no idea what you're saying here. "They tried to solve [a CPU problem] by
>switching ponder off" -- who is "they" and what was the problem?
>
>As for the manual (actually, you mean the FAQ), all it explains is that chess
>engines will try to get as much cpu speed as Windows will give them; EVERY
>decent chess engine does this, not just The King. If you are TRULY concerned
>about engines taking more than their share of the CPU, then just run comp vs.
>comp games with ponder off.
>
>>( If I play windows versus windows program I always take back the last moves
>>and pause the clocks so none engine will be of border for the other engine)
>>I realy can't say anything about the way the king will consume CPU speed
>>as a winboard engine but still i am a litle sceptical about it.
>>But I am also a litle bit sceptical about autoplayer games and engine-engine
>>games in the first place.
>>Both using hash tables who says then don't cross each other.
>
>I do. Each engine is a separate instance that allocates separate memory. There
>is no memory sharing possible.
>
>jm


One _very_ bad thing CM used to do was poll for input in a tight loop when
it was sitting waiting on a move (not pondering).  This meant that it would
burn 50% of the CPU while the _other_ program was thinking.  This was a
bad bug several years ago, and I have no idea if it was ever fixed or not.

If not, that _might_ be what is being discussed.  A tight "got any input?"
loop is NFG when the engine could simply block on a read() call...  which
would burn no CPU at all.



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