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Subject: Re: Is Bitboard worthy?

Author: Bas Hamstra

Date: 02:14:14 10/17/00

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On October 16, 2000 at 10:18:31, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On October 16, 2000 at 06:32:53, Pham Minh Tri wrote:
>
>>I know that Bitboard makes move generation the fastest, but this structure is
>>also one of the most complicated. However, an old post said that the generation
>>function is not the key of success to chess program and the author illustrated
>>that after his optimality (which made that function work much faster), the speed
>>of system increased only 1 percent.
>>
>>As a result, my question is: is bitboard really worthy for implementation when
>>it takes a long time to program and more time to fix all bugs (maybe several
>>times bigger than the rest of program)? Or is it better if we use this time to
>>concentrate on hash table, null move threshold and so on? I plan that I will
>>forget the bitboard (at least in the first period) if it help me only few
>>percent.
>>
>>Pham
>
>
>I see nothing that makes them harder to use than an array.  Nor nothing that
>makes them particularly easier to use either.
>
>They have certain advantages on new architectures that move 64 bits of data
>around in one cycle, and they have some advantages in evaluation where you can
>answer lots of questions in one AND or OR operation.  On current machines, I
>would say they are no faster nor slower than any other approach.  On 64 bit
>architectures, they begin to look better.

Well if you wanted to build attacked-from tables I would not be so sure. Some
programs use that kind of info extensively. If you wanted to make such a
program, BB certainly wouldn't be the first option.

However I know at least 1 program that builds attacks-to tables with BB and that
seems to work fine.


Bas Hamstra.









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