Author: John Merlino
Date: 11:27:56 03/02/01
Go up one level in this thread
On March 02, 2001 at 08:17:53, William Penn wrote: >On March 02, 2001 at 07:00:18, William Penn wrote: > >>I still get too many engines running in Game Room, infinite time, Thinking Lines >>& Visual Thinking open, with custom defined personalities. There seems to be no >>good way to get rid of the extra engines. If I close then reopen CM with the >>same settings, they're still there. I can close the engines via Ctrl-Alt-Delete, >>which seems to be the only way. The disadvantage of that method is that Windows >>98 then kicks the corresponding hash tables up into the win386.swp file, which >>thereafter grows to a very bulky size and the hard drive does a lot of work. For >>example right now I'm using 256MB RAM, 128 hash tables, and my swap file is >>454MB. Apparenlty it works, but it makes most operations slow thereafter while >>the hard drive manipulates the inflated swap file. I guess all I can suggest is >>that there should be some way to start up everything without any engines >>running, then select what you want to run. Apparently there isn't any way to do >>that at present. >>WP > >OK, if my layout does NOT have the Thinking Lines and Visual Thinking windows in >it, and I set up the game with the custom defined personalities like I want >(usually human vs a personality), then I exit CM and reload CM, it comes back up >with the proper number of engines (one) running. (Of course that isn't very >convenient, but it works.) I can then open the Thinking Lines window which comes >up without any boxes checked, and I can select the White or Black box. I still >have the proper number of engines (only one) running. > >The problem is with the Visual Thinking window. No matter what I do to try to >avoid it, when I first open the Visual Thinking window it always comes up with >the Chessmaster radio button active. That always opens the extra unwanted >Chessmaster engine. And with 128MB hash, it is VERY slow to close that extra >engine if I then check the White or Black button, or if I close the Visual >Thinking window. It eventually closes the extra engine after several minutes (at >least 5-10 minutes) of hard drive grinding during which period my computer >becomes very sluggish. If I close Visual Thinking with the proper radio button >selected then reopen it, that button remains selected. > >I would suggest that operation of the Visual Thinking window be revised so that >it does NOT come up automatically with one of the radio buttons selected. Maybe >it needs another radio button, a null position(?). > >But to be honest I am less than enthusiastic about this design which >automatically calls up more than one engine to run simultaneously, and that's >really the problem I think. I don't think anyone really wants to see the results >of multiple engines running simultaneously in the Thinking Lines Window thereby >greatly slowing down thinking, so I'd probably do away with that "feature". One >engine running at a time is plenty! > >CM remembers all of its settings and keeps them the same the next time you load >CM. That's wrong, I think, as regards the engines. Rather than the programmers >trying to anticipate what user really wants to do with the engines, or assuming >user wants to do the same thing each time (time after time) thereby activating >an engine automatically at startup, the user needs positive control >(selectability) over exactly which engine runs and when. Solution: Do away with >all of the radio buttons and boxes on the Thinking Lines and Visual Thinking >windows! Instead -- have a new Engines Window with boxes in it to select which >engine user wants to run, the default always being that none are selected when >CM first loads. I think that might fix this problem. > >WP The problem is that you are INTENTIONALLY running two engines, both with 128MB hash tables, when your machine only has 256MB RAM. With Windows and the Chessmaster program both taking up significant amounts of memory (probably much more than 64MB combined, and maybe more than 100MB), SIGNIFICANT thrashing is going to occur. Also, Windows will not clear out the swapfile unless a very long downtime occurs (and possibly not until you shut down Windows entirely). The Chessmaster checkbox in the Thinking Lines window is attached to the same engine as the Chessmaster radio button in the Visual Thinking window, so the problem is only that you have one engine playing the game, and another separate engine analyzing the game at the same time. This is what you told Chessmaster to do. As for the design, most users have responded positively to it, stating that having the multiple portions of the Thinking Lines window active simultaneously is "cool". Although, admittedly, the people on this board are NOT the typical users, I suspect that there are a few people here who agree with the usefulness of seeing the thoughts of more than one engine simultaneously. Additionally, you have actually circumvented the initial design by replacing the default Chessmaster personality with one that allocates 128MB of hash, meaning that you have NO CHOICE but to allocate all of that memory when you want to use a mentor feature (Analysis, Advice, and both the Visual Thinking and Thinking Lines windows). The original Chessmaster personality allocates only 1MB, so if you had not modified these files, you would not be having this problem. Therefore, I would file this problem under user error, rather than a bug. The extra engine(s) WILL go away eventually, once Windows is able to handle all of the allocation and deallocation of the memory. But, as you are witnessing (and as I have duplicated on my machine), this can take several minutes. This, once again, is not the fault of the Chessmaster program. jm p.s. Now that I've talked about what you SHOULDN'T have done, let me quote from the ReadMe file for the 1.0.2 patch (which should be released within 10 days). This section refers to an easier (and more "expert user") way of telling Chessmaster how much memory should be allocated for the mentor engine's hash table: ----------------- 7. Added a special INI file setting for expert users, allowing them to override the amount of memory allocated for the mentor engine's transposition table. By default, the Chessmaster mentor personality only allocates 1 MB of memory (the same as the default Chessmaster personality that you can play against). However, several users asked for some way to increase this. Here's how you can do it: -- Go to your user folder. You will find this by going to the folder in which you installed Chessmaster 8000 (usually "C:\Program Files\Chessmaster 8000") and going to the "Users" folder under that. In this "Users" folder, there will be one or more folders, one for each user that has been created. Let's say your user name is "MyUser". This means that the full path to your user folder would be "C:\Program Files\Chessmaster 8000\Users\MyUser". -- In this folder, there will be a file called "MyUser.INI", where "MyUser" is the name of the user. Open this file for editing with your favorite text editor. -- Add the following text: [mentor] ttable_size=2 where '2' above is the number of MEGABYTES of memory that you want Chessmaster 8000 to allocate for the mentor engine. Chessmaster will only allocate up to 256 MB of memory, so any number greater than 256 will be assumed to be equal to 256. Numbers less than 2 will be ignored entirely. -- Save the file and run Chessmaster. Any time you use a "mentor" feature (Natural Language Advice, Game Analysis or the "Chessmaster" setting in the Visual Thinking and Thinking Lines windows), the mentor engine will now allocate the specified amount of memory. WARNING: This feature is intended for expert computer users only! Entering a number that is larger than or close to ONE FOURTH of the amount of PHYSICAL RAM that your computer has can cause your computer to slow down significantly, as Windows attempts to allocate the memory by "swapping out" other allocated memory to your computer's hard drive. This can even cause Chessmaster (or Windows) to stop responding entirely. Keep in mind that both Windows and the Chessmaster program require significant amounts of memory (as will any other program that may be running at the same time as Chessmaster). Another good rule of thumb is to subtract 100 from the total amount of RAM that your machine has, and then divide that number by 2. This is a reasonable maximum for this setting. So, if your machine has 128MB of memory, then you should beware of using any number larger than 14. Use this setting with great care. If you do not know how much memory your computer has, then you should not use this setting! -----------------
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