Author: Uri Blass
Date: 00:12:27 04/16/02
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On April 16, 2002 at 00:35:06, David Dory wrote: >On April 15, 2002 at 06:08:21, Sune Fischer wrote: > >------------------------------------------------------------------------------> >>In theory bigger is better, in practise you don't get much improvement beyond a >>certain size. > >You're thinking of hash sizes. If you can't use a LOT more ram memory, HUMONGOUS >hard disks, BIGGER cache(s), and FASTER EVERYTHING, in your program, your >programmer is brain dead, pull the respirator! >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >>do you have any idea how Christophe got Tiger 200 elo stronger than Crafty? They are both using the same alpha-beta, so how >>could one possibly be 200 elo stronger, explain that! >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Simple: > >Christophe has put in a great amount of time and effort and testing and has >found ways to better tune his evalu8, his extensions, futility pruning, >further optimized his code for speed, added more chess knowledge, etc. > >And all that work won't equal the improvement Chess Tiger will get when he's >able to re-compile and optimize his program for the next (faster), CPU and >system, later this year. > >You won't SEE that gain compared to other engines because (guess what), ALL the >top engines will be stepping up to the latest hardware, also! > >Thus the HARDWARE IMPROVEMENT for chess programs may not be so well noticed, but >I assure you - it's there, and it is the major factor in the improvement of >chess programs in the last 20 years. >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>The countless number of hours put into testing and analysing, you don't think >>that is going to pay off? > >The software will improve - but slowly, much more slowly than the hardware. I >don't care how many "hours of testing and analysing" the programmer's do. How do you know the future? Hardware improvement must be stopped because things cannot run faster than light. The only question is when it is going to happen. I agree that in the last 20 years hardware was improved more than software but if you look at pc programs in the last 5 years things are not so clear. The right comparison is to give the best programs of today the hardware of 1997 and put them to a match against the programs of 1997 in the hardware of today. Try to play a match between the ssdf leader of 16.4.1997 against the ssdf leader of 16.4.2002(Fritz7) when you give the ssdf leader of 16.4.1997 the hardware of today and you give Fritz7 the hardware of 1997. I do not think that the result is clear. I think that there was simply no improvement in the best programs in the years 1994-1996 because genius that dominated at that time did not improve(Genius3 and later versions of genius are in similiar strength) and other programmers only closed the gap from genius. Uri
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