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Subject: Re: Bitboards and Evaluation

Author: Andrew Dados

Date: 13:55:21 05/31/01

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On May 31, 2001 at 16:36:55, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On May 31, 2001 at 16:19:05, Andrew Dados wrote:
>
>>On May 31, 2001 at 10:37:25, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On May 31, 2001 at 08:09:52, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hello i had in mind comparing assembly output of 2 things
>>>>but now i look in crafty 18.9 i see the pattern is not even
>>>>in crafty 18.9, though it's a basic pattern. so it's hard
>>>>to compare things.
>>>>
>>>>But i'm pretty amazed by that every thing is
>>>>getting referenced as
>>>>   tree->pos.board[sq]
>>>>
>>>>If i would be roman catholic i would now make a cross and say
>>>>"lucky i'm multiprocessor",
>>>>
>>>>because what i would be using there is
>>>>   board[sq]
>>>>
>>>>And i'm using that everywhere in my evaluation. Bob
>>>>however smartly got rid of the thing by using a define
>>>>that however translatest to it PcOnSq() it's called.
>>>>
>>>>But in the assembly code you still see it!
>>>>
>>>>Also what i see is the general problem of bitboards:
>>>>  if( (something[indexed]&bitmask) == pattern )
>>>>
>>>>Where i can do
>>>>  if( something[indexed] == pattern )
>>>>
>>>>So i save an AND there.
>>>
>>>come on.  Show me your one if to see if a pawn is isolated.  Or if it is
>>>passed.  Or if it is passed and can't be caught by the opposing king.  Or
>>>if your two rooks or rook/queen are connected on the 7th rank...  or if you
>>>have the "absolute 7th"...
>>>
>>>you are comparing apples to oranges...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Also i'm pretty amazed by 'signed char bval_w[64]'.
>>>>
>>>>First of all in DIEP i am happy to announce that i threw out all
>>>>8 bits arrays.
>>>>
>>>>I didn't know crafty is still using 8 bits arrays!
>>>>I thought it was a mixture of 32 bits with 64 bits!
>>>
>>>
>>>Vincent, I suspect there is a _lot_ you don't know.  :)  I use them because
>>>they are faster on the Intel hardware.  The test to prove it is quite simple.
>>>64 bytes is 2 cache lines.  64 words is 8 cache lines.  It's just that simple.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>The second thing i wonder about is why this is getting done *every*
>>>>evaluation. bval_w gives a piece square table value which is constant
>>>>for bishops.
>>>>
>>>>You can do that incremental in makemove/unmakemove !!
>>>
>>>
>>>Have you read my reasons for doing this in the past?  Apparently not.  So
>>>one more time:
>>>
>>>"I do everything in evaluate.c to make it easy to change the code.  If I do
>>>things incrementally, then I have to modify _two_ pieces of code when I change
>>>it.  Modifying one thing is easier.  I'm worried less about speed than I am
>>>about quality.  I don't know, for example, that the bishop piece/square table
>>>will always exist.  In fact, I am pretty sure it won't.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>This is a pure waste of system time!
>>>>
>>>>Note in DIEP i would do that in my makemove as:
>>>>  int *p;
>>>>  global int tablescore;
>>>>  p = psq[piece];
>>>>
>>>>  tablescore += p[to_square]-p[from_square];
>>>>
>>>>Crafty does it every evaluation!!!
>>>>
>>>>Bob something to improve in your evaluation!
>>>
>>>Nope.  One day as pieces of the evaluation become "static" and don't change
>>>anymore, some of it _might_ get done incrementally.  But in endgames, your
>>>"idea" is not so good.  Suppose you move your bishop twice in the search path?
>>>You evaluate that piece/square entry _twice_.  I evaluate it _once_.
>>>
>>>The deeper the depth, the less effective that incremental stuff is.  Just try
>>>it on Fine #70 for example.  I'll toast you good there...
>>>
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>Bob I saw that reasoning few times already and I thing you are wrong here.
>>Suppose branching factor of 2 and suppose we use that evaluation code on every
>>ply you will get spent time:
>>
>>const*(1+1/2+1/4+1/8+...)~<=2*const;
>
>I don't agree with your math:
>
>Say I search to 20 plies.  Nothing but kings can move.  I am going to do
>the king update 20 times, 10 for each side.  If I do it at the tips, I am
>going to do it _twice_... once for each king.
>
>That is _way_ more efficient.  You are overlooking the problem that for _every_
>terminal position evaluated, there is an N-ply path from the root to that
>position that is going to be incrementally evaluated D times (D=depth).
>
>It is pretty obvious that doing something twice is more efficient than doing it
>D times, except where D is < 2...
>
>
>
>>
>>I can write it like that because time spent in eval 3 plys deep from leaves will
>>be destributed among 8 children.
>
>But look at how many MakeMove() operations you had to do.  at the last ply I
>am going to do one MakeMove() for each Evaluate() call I do.  What about the
>_interior_ MakeMove() calls?
>
>
>IE to search 3 plies deep, you are going to do 2 + 4 + 8 MakeMove() calls,
>and 8 Evaluate() calls.  There it is pretty bad in simple endings.  I agree
>that this is an ending issue of course.  In the middlegame you move different
>pieces more often.
>
>But for fine 70, this is a killer.
>
>
>>
>>so *in worst case* you will have 2 times cost of normal leaf eval.
>>However most paths would give you const*(0+0+1/4+0+1/16+...) or sth like that.
>>So incremental eval cost is comparable to 'each leaf eval' no matter how many
>>plys. With BF of 3 worst case would give you 0.5 more time spent in incremental
>>eval (1/3+1/9+1/27+...=0.5). While it is hard to estimate average case (path) I
>>think incremental eval will still outperform 'each leaf eval'.
>>
>>And the worse the BF the better incremental eval gets.
>
>I don't think it is as much a BF problem as it is a depth problem.  The question
>is, in a given path, how many times do you move the same piece more than once.
>Because when that happens, you lose time compared to just doing it once at the
>end of the path.

There is a huge difference when you move a piece at ply=5 and time taken to
update that gets distributed among all 32 children and when you move a piece in
leaf node.

Even when I move my bishop 4 times on a path, but not on last ply, then I will
save time with incremental eval. Exponentially-shaped search tree takes care of
that.

-Andrew-

>
>My point was that I don't believe that in many cases, incremental eval saves
>a lot.  Perhaps in the opening and middlegame it saves more than it loses,
>since a 12 ply search probably won't move the same piece 6 times.  But in
>endgames, it does become more noticable.  We did a lot of incremental stuff in
>Cray Blitz, and we noticed that we paid a bit for it in simple endings.
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>-Andrew-



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