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Subject: Re: Back in time

Author: Mark Young

Date: 21:53:41 08/30/01

Go up one level in this thread


On August 30, 2001 at 23:52:17, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 30, 2001 at 13:21:49, Mark Young wrote:
>
>>On August 30, 2001 at 13:16:07, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On August 30, 2001 at 12:29:13, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 30, 2001 at 12:03:59, Mark Young wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On August 30, 2001 at 11:33:58, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On August 30, 2001 at 10:51:23, Mark Young wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On August 30, 2001 at 10:29:35, Mogens Larsen wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>On August 30, 2001 at 10:20:12, Mark Young wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>You will answer it for my Bob! Here is your Quote and the full text.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Nothing in the quoted text supports your own "little progress" interpretation.
>>>>>>>>There is "small number of "revolutionary" ideas", "slow, methodical progress"
>>>>>>>>and "incremental changes". All of which underlines slow and steady quite well
>>>>>>>>according to my understanding of the English language. But what do I know, I'm a
>>>>>>>>foreigner.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I will Quote again for the foreigners:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>"Part of the progress has been due
>>>>>>>to incremental changes to chess engines/evaluations/etc, part has been due to
>>>>>>>the hardware speed advances.  Probably more of the latter than the former, if
>>>>>>>the truth is known..."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Bob states clearly from the above that he thinks "if the truth is known" Micro
>>>>>>>Chess computer advancement is more due to hardware speed or faster computers.
>>>>>>>Less to due with better chess programs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>You keep quoting the same text, and you keep avoiding the question that I
>>>>>>(and now others) have asked.  Here it is again:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>--------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>where did I say "little software progress has been
>>>>>>made over the past 10 years."???
>>>>>>--------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>>Im glad this is not what you mean in your statements...as software is much
>>>>>stronger today then even a few years ago...disregarding hardware. I still
>>>>>disagree with slow and steady, as I think we can show fast progress on the
>>>>>software side.
>>>>
>>>>I am not sure where the "fast" progress has been.  IE I don't see any totally
>>>>new search algorithm (including parallel search which has been around for well
>>>>over 20 years already), any new anything really.  The programs of today fit
>>>>in the mold of chess 4.x, with a few enhancements thrown in here and there.
>>>>Even the forward-pruning stuff was around in the days of Greenblatt.
>>>>
>>>>There are things we can do today that we could not do 10 years ago, because
>>>>back then they would have been too costly and would have slowed the engine to
>>>>the point it would be tactically weak.  But the ideas were known 10 years ago
>>>>already, we just couldn't do them (actually, in Cray Blitz we did a lot of them
>>>>as the hardware allowed us to get away with things that a non-vector machine
>>>>would not.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>If by below you think software only counts for less then 30 elo a
>>>>>year. In 10 years that only comes to 0 to 299 elo over 10 years. I think we can
>>>>>show over 30 elo a year on the software side. If I played Fritz 2  a ten year
>>>>>old program I know already the current programs will best Fritz by well over 300
>>>>>elo points. The results are just ugly we you play old vs new, but when you play
>>>>>the very old programs well....
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Play the old program vs the new program using old hardware.  I'll bet you won't
>>>>see 300 elo difference.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of the older programs
>>>>actually would come out on top, as they were so optimized to a specific
>>>>processor speed.
>>>>
>>>>And notice that when I say "at least more than 50% of the strength increases
>>>>come from hardware" that doesn't mean that just faster hardware is all that is
>>>>needed.  Sometimes the faster hardware makes it possible for us to do something
>>>>in software that we could not afford on slower machines.  Without the faster
>>>>hardware the software feature would not be possible.  And I still attribute
>>>>that gain to hardware since without it it would be impossible to do.
>>>
>>>I understood that mark young is not going to use
>>>tournament time control on the fast hardware.
>>>
>>>If fast time control on the fast hardware is eqvivalent to
>>>slow time control on old hardware then in order to save time
>>>it is better to use fast time control on the new hardware.
>>>
>>>The only possible problem that I see is that I guess that the old
>>>programs are not optimized for the new hardware not because
>>>of the time control and I guess that the new programs earn more
>>>speed from the difference between 386 or 486 and the pIII1000.
>>>
>>>I am not talking about the algorithm but about the way that some
>>>functions are implemented in assembler.
>>>I also guess that the new programs are not optimized for the old
>>>hardware and I think about the assembler commands.
>>>
>>>it seems that giving all the programs new hardware
>>>is unfair for the old programs when the opposite
>>>is unfair for the new programs.
>>
>>I am using Junior 4.6 a 32 bit windows program it will do just fine and be fair
>>for both programs on a PIII chip. And junior 4.6 is stronger then any program of
>>10 years ago.
>
>
>Amir Ban is right and I know that the world champion Junior4.5 was faster than
>Junior4.6 because Junior4.5 was 32 bit when Junior4.6 was 16 bit thanks to
>chessbase.
>
>If you want to be fair you need to give Junior4.6 faster hardware or maybe to
>ask Amir to send you the 32 bit version that won WMCCC(Junior4.5)
>
>There is a small difference in the evaluation between Junior4.5 and Junior4.6
>but the most important difference is the speed of the program and Junior4.5
>is faster.
>
>I remember that Junior4.5 was 20% faster at the time that Junior4.6 was
>available.
>
>I am not sure what is the situation today with the new hardware.

Junior 4.6 is hitting over 600 Kns on a PIII 933, 20 % will not make that much
of a change, if the results are really crushing for Chesstiger.

But this is not a match really Vs Junior 4.6 but against the older program and
junior 4.6 is much better still then any program of 10 years ago.

>
>Uri



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