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Subject: Re: Shredder 5 - first impressions

Author: James T. Walker

Date: 19:58:06 12/18/00

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On December 18, 2000 at 19:58:26, Mogens Larsen wrote:

>On December 18, 2000 at 18:09:27, Peter Berger wrote:
>
>>GUI is simply marvellous ; I have never seen anything better so far .
>
>You're absolutely right. The GUI is outstanding no matter what your preference
>might be and you can configure almost anything.
>
>>I haven't checked on many new features yet ; there seems to be a lot to keep you
>>busy for _very_ long .
>
>All the features, with the exception of tournament play, are available. The ease
>with which you can install and run matches with WinBoard engines more than
>compensates for that.
>
>>Time will tell what it's worth and SSDF is a hard challenge .
>
>If they choose to test it, which I hope they do.
>
>>Yet this program is so great :-) ..
>
>Yep, I agree. Did you remember to download the patch?
>
>Mogens "Not speaking as spokesperson for Gambit-Soft" Larsen


I wish I could agree with you guys but I can't.  If you don't mind paying twice
what would be a fair price then maybe you can be happy with it.  I've had it a
week now and I'm satisfied with it's strength at longer time controls.  At
Game/30 or less it seems to suffer from some unknown malady.  The GUI is pretty
smooth but it is my first Shredder and the help files seem to be written for
some other program (Maybe Shredder 4).  Maybe you can tell me what the
"Ettiquette" setting is for?  I get messages in the endgame like:
"Looking for a win for white CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4" and "endgame database not found"
I have the 3/4/5 man endgame tablebases in "D:\tb\" and it seems to use them
most of the time, so why the messages?  The database functions are primitive but
do work.  For instance there is no "Math" functions like computing ELO and no
easy way to copy files to a different database.  No way to do a crosstable of a
match/tournament just played.  The line at the top that shows the win/loss/draw
info during an auto232 match disappears at the end of the match just when I
would like to read it.  There are many functions which have absoultly no mention
in the "help" section.  The Nimzo2000 program supplied with it is terrible.  It
will only play auto232 as "Master" and then only with white. (And this from the
guys that created auto232)  I have written several emails and recieved a partial
answer to one.
So compared to Chessbase it comes up way short.  I haven't even looked at the
SOS program so I can't comment on it.  Frankly I am only interested in the
"World Champion" and that is the reason I payed the too high price.  I believe
ChessMaster 8000 at 25% of the price is a better deal by far.  And at least they
are planning a patch to fix the bugs in it. (Yes I downloaded the patch which
does nothing for me)
Jim



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