Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: A ratio of exponentials

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 17:01:55 01/27/00

Go up one level in this thread


On January 27, 2000 at 19:25:40, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
[snip]
>This is what you originally wrote:
>------
>Do you know how Deep Blue searched?  How will we reach those fantastic speeds?
>Faster hardware does not inflate ratings.  It raises it by a logarithmic amount
>for each increase.  It is estimated about 50 ELO.  So, suppose we have a program
>with 2500 ELO and we want to get to 2800.
>2500 + 50ELO/doubling * 6 doublings = 2800.  Sounds pretty simple, right?
>
>But if it takes 500 Mhz to get 2500 ELO, then it will take:
>
>500 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 32 GHz to achieve it (roughly speaking).
>
>IOW, more horsepower is a tough way to make chess programs play better.  There
>is also evidence (according to some) that the increase in speed has
>*diminishing* returns.  Hence, it may take a terahertz to get there.  Don't know
>of any material that could do that, not even a Josephson Junction.
>------------
>
>When you're talking about increasing Elo, I assume that's in games with some
>time control.  When you said that the increase in speed has diminishing returns,
>I figured this was because of the exponential nature of the chess tree.  I.e.,
>at some point, the increase in speed to see any gain will be prohibitively high.

I don't remember where I read it, and I can't find the article now.  It may even
have been discussions on this board.  As far as diminishing returns, I meant
that you don't always get 50 ELO for the next ply.  At some point, maybe you get
40, then later 30, etc.

I don't know the answer to the question, and (quite frankly) I doubt very
seriously if anyone does.  Ernst Heinz is doing an experiment that will answer
the question.



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.