Author: Larry S. Tamarkin
Date: 00:39:24 01/15/98
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Yes, Fritz5 is perfect, but watch out for a couple of things - Fritz5 will hog up all of your computer resources and you need a pretty powerful machine. I wouldn't go with anything less then a 75 MhZ Pentium with 16 meg of ram. Also if you want it to learn from its opening book you will need about 65 Megabytes of Hard disk space in addition to the 35 (I think) that the program takes up. Anyway the 300,000 games with around 5000 anotated, and the many features make Fritz5 a great choice for a playing program and database - Just be sure to have those resourses! Fritz5 also comes with Fritz4 on the CD, Fritz3 Dos (don't worry it's not too hard on your computer resourses) which has some piece square tables that you can fiddle with, which could be fun). The Fritz5 engine dll and, Fritz3, and Fritz4 dll, can also be used in Chess Base 6.0 should you decide that you want the database later. Another great program is Genius5 Gold. For about the same price, you get a superbly designed Windows playing program. In fact on the Genius5 CD there are no less then every version of Genius both dos & windows, so you can have some fun experamenting. (actually, I only play with Version 5). Genius5 gold has the best selection of chess boards, bar none, and its 3d boards are in IMHO the best there are! It also comes with a database on the CD in cbf (chessbase compatable) format of 500,000 games. They appear to go from about 1945 on. Last but not least, the playing board, dialog boxes, ect. are fully sizable the way a windows program should work! (many of us, including those of us who love Fritz5 still wish it were a fully enabled W/95 convention's program). Best of all, you can run other stuff while Genius is up, with out worrying much about your computer freezing up. (Of course with W/95, if your computer is like any of the computer's I've owned, it will freeze up on its own, even with Norton Utilities in there, but it won't be Genius's fault). Both of these programs are real quick, especially in blitz, have exallent analysis functions, and are compatable with Chess Base the main database tool of a lot of player's world wide. And both are mature products, that have gone through many interations. The engines in Fritz are by Franz Morsch, and Genius is by Richard Lang. Though Fritz5 and other recent programs are getting most of the limelight lately, Genius is tied for 1st as my favoright, of all the programs I've owned. (Mchess, Hiarcs, TheKing, CM5500, The Chess Machine, Zarkov and all). mrslug - the inkompetent chess software addict! On January 14, 1998 at 14:59:05, Stephen Puca wrote: >I recently purchased Rebel 9 and subsequently returned it to the vendor >for Hiarcs 6 instead because I found it confusing to use and it had a >very inadequate user manual. I was utterly flabbergasted with the >difficulty of even loading Hiarcs 6 onto my machine as it was very DOS >oriented and, being a computer neophyte, I know only rudimentary Win 95 >and am completely baffled by DOS talk....strike two! This morning, I >shipped the Hiarcs6 back and for my last chance at expensive Chess >Software, I ordered Fritz 5. Now i'm hoping for the best as I await my >third and last choice. I am hoping it is Win 95 friendly to both >install and use, unlike either of the previous two programs. I want to >use the program to help improve my abysmal chess as well as to have a >good program to play against to warmup for my ICC matches. I am only a >1200 ELO rating which oftentimes dips even further. I would like any >and all feedback from Fritz5 owners that may make my Win95 life easier >and also any comments as to the utility of Fritz5 as a teaching and >coaching tool. Thank you and may I apologize beforehand to all the >old-hand DOS worshippers; I'm sorry, I just got "here" too late!
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