Author: David Dahlem
Date: 18:38:00 02/15/01
Go up one level in this thread
On February 15, 2001 at 20:46:47, John Merlino wrote: >On February 15, 2001 at 19:44:50, David Dahlem wrote: > >> >>On February 15, 2001 at 18:34:38, John Merlino wrote: >> >>>On February 14, 2001 at 09:47:03, David Dahlem wrote: >>> >>>>In the Game Room, some Winboard personalities play almost instantly with their >>>>corresponding white or black box checked in the thinking lines window. This >>>>happens no matter what time control is used. With the box unchecked in the >>>>thinking lines window, they play correctly. >>>>These personalities, Comet, ExChess, Nejmet, and TCBishop, will not go past >>>>depth 5, even in a 2 hour game. So there is no way to use the thinking lines >>>>window with them. There may be others that do this but i'm sure about these >>>>four. Anyone else noticed this behavior? >>>> >>>>Dave >>> >>>Here are my results from using the above four engines: >>> >>>Comet (B28) does OCCASIONALLY go past depth 5, but never past depth 7. Very >>>strange. Selecting the checkbox merely sends a "post" command. It does nothing >>>more. >>> >>>ExChess (3.14) appears to be fine, but I can't see any way to get it to report >>>the depth because it doesn't appear to support post mode. However, the first >>>non-book move it made in a G/10 game took 20 seconds, so that seems like it went >>>past depth 5 to me, even with the checkbox selected. >>> >>>I couldn't get Nejmet (2.6.0) to work at all, and it actually screwed up both >>>CM8000 and my system! Clocks stopped ticking and the engine wouldn't shut down. >>>I eventually had to reboot, probably due to the memory leaks from having to >>>manually shut down the engines. My notes from the development team say that they >>>couldn't get Nejmet to work in CM8000, WinBoard, or even in a DOS prompt.... >>> >>>The Crazy Bishop behaves similarly to Comet. >>> >>>Any thoughts from the authors? >>> >>>jm >> >>Clicking the checkbox does send a post command, that can be seen in the Winboard >>output window. But it also does something else for me. It makes these engines >>move instantly. I can use a 2 hr. time control, and after these engines get out >>of book, while they are thinking, clicking the checkbox will make them move >>instantly. Unclicking the checkbox, they will think normally. I tested this over >>and over so i know that is happening for me. I don't know whether this happened >>before the patch or not. >> >>Dave > >I verified that the engines worked the same in 1.0.0 as they do after the patch. > >I think I know what the problem is. Not only does clicking the checkbox send >"post", but it also sends the "." command, which is a request for a periodic >update. The XBoard document does state that this is only valid if the engine is >an "analyze" mode, but it appears that sending it to these engines when they are >NOT in analyze mode causes them to move (and it shouldn't). > >I suspect that my machine may be faster than yours, as the engines in question >are able to get a little bit deeper than you are. But the symptoms are still the >same. > >jm Thanks. You are probably right about your machine being faster that mine. The engines don't really evaluate at all with their checkbox checked. It takes about a second for the moves list window to switch from black to white and in this time i think the engine gets to ply 1-5, then it moves instantly after the display switches. Dave
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