Author: David Dory
Date: 23:14:42 04/14/02
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On April 14, 2002 at 10:08:18, Sune Fischer wrote: >On April 14, 2002 at 08:07:22, David Dory wrote: > >>On April 13, 2002 at 05:11:15, Sune Fischer wrote: > David Dory wrote: >It's hardware not software, that has provided the largest increase in chess >program strength in the last 20 years. <edited> Sune replied: >>>That is a myth. >>>You only have to take one look at the SSDF list to see there are significant >>>improvements from version to version on the same hardware. <edited> >Obviously you have no idea what the h*ll you are talking about. >Besides, there has been software development into how to maximize the use of >the hash, so I'd say a good deal of the improvement here is actually better >software design. What did they improve the hash performance by? 2 whole percent? Woooowee!! It's a paltry amount. NOTHING like the improvements made in computer HARDWARE. Talk to Bob, or Christophe or Ed, J. Schaeffer, just anybody, Sune. Don't take my word for it. Ken Thompson once described watching his program competing, and just wanting to CRY for the lack of speed in the hardware. That's why he built Belle, to overcome the HARDWARE limitations of PC's in the 70's. Crayblitz didn't run on a Cray because they liked that snappy name. CHESS wasn't a dominant champ because it ran on a PC. Fritz won't be fighting Kramnik from a slow PC. That's because they know they'd get their butts kicked by Kramnik if they came up to THE BATTLE with a run of the mill type of PC. Name one algorithim used today, that wasn't used 20 years ago? Null move is one noteable enhancement to A-B, but that's about it. Everything else has been more knowledge and speed, ALL MADE POSSIBLE (and practical), because of THE COMPUTER HARDWARE IMPROVEMENTS. Re: The need for big, fast, hard disks You can't keep a lot of EGTB's in memory, Sune. You need big, fast, hard disks, and all the main memory you can get. If you get enough memory, you can page the part of the EGTB's into memory, so you don't have to keep going out for a disk read all the time (which takes 5-10 THOUSAND times longer)!. NOW THERE'S A BIG IMPROVEMENT!! BTW, EGTB's are NOT a software improvement of the past 20 years, (Ken Thompson had his in 1977,) but they're a BIG help! PC programs couldn't do this 20 years ago because they didn't have the speed or the memory for it. Another hardware bottleneck we've overcome! >Think again please. I'd say it is _at least_ 50% software progress now >a days. Done. I'd say you don't know what the - well, I can be a gentleman and say I think you're more attuned to the small increases in software, and have not particularly noticed the HUGE increases in hardware performance. David
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