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Subject: Re: 0x88 is not so smart

Author: Tom Kerrigan

Date: 13:52:43 06/14/00

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On June 14, 2000 at 16:17:25, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On June 14, 2000 at 15:01:32, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On June 14, 2000 at 06:56:27, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>On June 14, 2000 at 05:32:16, Alessandro Damiani wrote:
>>>>On June 13, 2000 at 23:18:54, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>>On June 13, 2000 at 16:53:39, Eugene Nalimov wrote:
>>>>>>Combine two approaches -- 0x88 and 10x12. Use 12x16 board, and access board by
>>>>>>    board[0x20+square]
>>>>>>(In C/C++ you can define macro for that).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Than in each case you can use more appropriate of 2 methods.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Well actually Eugene it is what I do already. Sorry, I should have stated this
>>>>>more clearly in my post. I don't use 12x12 or 10x12. I use 16x16 (actually I
>>>>>just need 16x12).
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't even need to add 0x20... That's why I think 16x12 is more efficient than
>>>>>0x88, and this comes from close examination of what a typical chess program does
>>>>>most of the time.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>    Christophe
>>>>
>>>>The next step are bitboards.
>>>>
>>>>Alessandro
>>>
>>>
>>>How many of the top programs actually use bitboards?
>>
>>My guess is that of those programs which are for sale, none of them do.
>>The reason I guess this, is that the programs have been under development for a
>>long time.  They probably started out with one of the representations before
>>bitboards.  To change over to bitboards would require some tangible benefit.
>>Since for 32 bit processors, the change is negligible, I strongly suspect that
>>none of the professional programs have done this.
>>
>>However, once the 64 bit processors become mainstream, I expect all of them to
>>make the transition at some point.
>
>
>Don't be so sure. For example in my program I see no part that could be improved
>with bitboards. I just don't need them.
>
>I really think that bitboards have no intrinsic objective advantage. That's just
>another way of representing things.
>
>It is elegant and COULD be used to simplify complex operations, but the key
>point is that in a chess program these complex operations are simply not
>required...
>
>You can give me whatever example of an operation elegantly handled with
>bitboards, but if your example is realistic and is really used in a chess
>program I'm sure I can do the same thing with my data representation with no
>additional cost.
>
>I have heard examples of ways of evaluating passed pawns that were alledgedly
>faster with bitboards, but I do these evaluations in my program without
>bitboards, and without pain...

Out of curiosity, how do you test for passed pawns?

-Tom



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