Author: Steve Maughan
Date: 04:54:22 07/24/03
Go up one level in this thread
Russell, >Could you (or anyone else) go into a little bit more detail about what you see >as the drawbacks of UCI? Sure! The main drawbacks are those hinted at by Dieter. Most engines ponder by completing a search, assuming an opponents move, and if it's actually played by their opponent they continue to seach - thus giving them extra seach time on the position. If this is how you do pondering then there is no problem. However, if you do something more complex e.g. after starting to search the pondered move you find at mates sequence so switch to pondering something else - then this is not easily implemented using UCI. The second common drawback stated is to do with learning. The way UCI is setup it's not easy to tell when a game is finished - effectively the GUI decides. This can make learning tough. However engines such as Sjeng don't seem to have a problem. Another less common complaint is to do with time management. The GUI doesn't give information about the *next* time management phase of the game. So if you had 40 move in 2 hours followed by rest of game in 1 min (extreme controls!) you'd want to same some of your initial two hours for the second stage - under UCI you don't know about the second phase until it starts. Those are the main drawbacks but IMHO they are not that severe and the ease at which UCI can be implemented makes it ideal for an amateur engine. Remember the program that tops the SSDF (aka Shredder) has been using UCI for four years. I take the approach that when Monarch (my engine) is getting more than 50% against the latest version of Shredder I'll start looking for weaknesses in UCI to bitch about!! Regards, Steve
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.