Author: Vasik Rajlich
Date: 06:07:23 01/20/06
Go up one level in this thread
On January 19, 2006 at 18:41:30, Jay Urbanski wrote: >On January 19, 2006 at 08:18:35, Vasik Rajlich wrote: > >>On January 19, 2006 at 03:48:34, Tord Romstad wrote: >> >>>On January 18, 2006 at 22:26:06, Jay Urbanski wrote: >>> >>>>On January 18, 2006 at 17:55:55, Dann Corbit wrote: >>>> >>>>>Executables are heavyweight processes that heavily consume resources and threads >>>>>are lightweight processes which consume less resources. But a threaded server >>>>>needs any global variables to have write-access gated with a critical section >>>>>whereas a global in a spawned server has no effect (since each server is a >>>>>single process running a single thread of execution). >>>>> >>>>>It is better, but much harder, to write a threaded chess engine. >>>> >>>> >>>>Very true but with nearly all processor improvements in the immediate future >>>>coming from more cores/threads - it will likely be worth the effort to bite the >>>>bullet and learn to write good threaded code at some point. >>> >>>Why? Wouldn't a chess engine using multiple processes and >>>shared memory be just as fast as a similar program with >>>multiple threads on a computer with several CPUs (or CPUs >>>with multiple cores)? I thought the engine using processes >>>would just consume a bit more memory, and not have any >>>significant disadvantages apart from that. >>> >>>I'm not saying that you are wrong, of course. I am totally >>>ignorant about this subject, and I ask in order to learn more. >>> >>>Tord >> >>Dann and Jay are I guess talking about the mp implementation of just sharing the >>hash table. It's a very cheap way to get some performance benefit, and I am >>thinking about it as a lazy way out for the time being. >> >>Indeed I realize that multi-threaded apps are probably the future. It's just a >>question of finding the time to do this (and taking this time away from other >>tasks). >> >>Vas > >So, my $0.02 is that I'd prefer an SMP version sooner even if it's non-optimal, >and you can take the time to a better job with it at your leisure. :) > >Idle CPUs seem like such a waste to me... Yes, that's what I was thinking. There should at least be something very soon. Vas
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