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Subject: Re: odd multithreaded search behavior--explanation?

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 00:47:37 05/26/00

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On May 26, 2000 at 02:49:55, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>I've been writing a multithreaded program. I'm running on 1 processor but my
>program splits into 4 threads. So far, the threads don't communicate in any way,
>so searches take exactly 4 times as long (not counting some overhead).
>
>But this evening I added a shared hash table, and now the threads=4 program is
>only slightly slower (in terms of NPS and nodes/ply) than the threads=1 program.
>
>Is this some sort of mistake? I tried for almost an hour to prove that something
>flakey is going on, but it seems to really go 4 times faster, even though the
>threads don't communicate (except for the hash table). The PVs and scores that
>the programs spit out are exactly the same, and the threads seem to be sharing
>the work equally.
>
>Could this be some sort of side effect from running on 1 processor?
>
>Thanks for any comments.
>
>-Tom

This is one way of writing a multiprocessor chess program.  Rather than having
the threads run lock-step, you let them do their own thing, and count on the
transposition table to save you work.

I tried this and the initial cut was much slower than the lock-step version, so
it would take some enhancing.  I think that the Virtual Chess guys did this
early on, and I think there's someone else who reads this group who tried
something similar, if he'd like to come out.

bruce



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