Author: Harald Faber
Date: 11:29:01 09/30/99
Hi all, this is what Ed wrote: I know now there is not a (big) problem other than that I have noticed the below list of weird things which are good to know for everybody who use auto232. #1. In rare cases I have seen Rebel's NPS drop with a factor of 3 during an auto232 match. Thus playing a match on a PII-450 the machine at some moment in the auto232 match the PC Rebel was running suddenly behaved as a PII-150 machine. The factor 3 is remarkable because it is an indication it smells to hardware and not to software. Of course the outcome of these matches are worthless and I wouldn't exclude the possibility such things also happen on the machines of Rebel opponents. The BIG problem is: how do you recognize it? Perhaps it happens a lot more because it is difficult to notice it. I think that for the future I will add some code to test the reliability of the program after each game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- After Ed having published how to activate the autoplayer within Rebel10, I started a testmatch against the new Nimzo7.32 early in the morning. When I came back I saw Nimzo lead 2-0 and the 3rd game Nimzo was a piece up for 2 pawns. I watched this game and couldn't believe my eyes. Rebel was incredibly slow, only doing 24-30knps on my MMX166. Usually it is between 45 and 60knps so I stopped this game and played "normal" to check if this was a position in which Rebel slows down because of deep threats and deep tactics like it happens sometimes. But nothing. I saw the normal 50knps. This of course explains why Rebel played some incredible bad moves in the 2 games it lost as it didn't reach sufficient search depth. (BTW this is a way to recognize Rebel having played much slower) My conclusion is that I will stop testing at least Rebel10 with auto232, and you guys who can't resist should carefully take a look at the games and the nps.
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