Author: Richard A. Fowell
Date: 20:43:01 10/26/01
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<snip>
>
>One further question: what effect on performance does memory allocation have?
>I've got 256 Mb RAM, I can easily set these applications to 50 Mb or more.
>Would that give me deeper analysis, or is there a point beyond which it won't
>make a difference?
Beyond the required memory allocation, what you can do with added RAM allocation
is to increase the amount of space available for hash tables. These are most
useful in endgames. Basically, they let the program store its evaluations of
positions, so if that position comes up in another variation (as a
transposition), it will remember the evaluation, and save the trouble of
evaluating it again. In endgames, with few pieces on the board, transpositions
are a larger fraction of the positions that come up.
You definitely want a meg or two of hash, at minimum. HIARCS will let you
allocate up to roughly 64Mb for hash tables, but there will be a diminishing
return, and in short time controls, HIARCS won't have enough time to use
anywhere near that much. Sigma Chess will let you go up to 160 Mb in hash.
I rarely allocate more than 8Mb of hash, but I haven't experimented with
the settings in a long time. With Crafty, you can allocate both memory
separately
for both pawn pattern hash tables and regular hash tables.
-Richard
P.S.: You might try MacChess, too - it is completely freeware. One thing I
like about it is that, like Crafty, when you log analysis, you can see
how it's evaluation/continuation evolve with thinking time. It is also
very convenient for quick analysis - it launches quickly, you can copy
EPD or PGN from CCC, and just open MacChess, click on the board window
(for EPD) or the moves window (for PGN) and command-V to paste it in.
Similarly, click on the board window or moves window and use command-C
to copy the EPD or PGN of the current position/game. Likewise, you can
click on the analysis window and command-C to copy MacChess's analysis.
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Tip #1: Saving the HIARCS PV as text to the Clipboard [Macintosh only]
The freeware Macintosh utility Text Capture will capture the HIARCS PV
and save it to the Clipboard as text. This is a good way to save HIARCS
analysis. This utility can be downloaded from
http://www.jwwalker.com/pages/tc.html
The formal name is Text_Capture_FKEY2.4. Installation is easy, and does
not require rebooting. After downloading, drag a copy of the
"Text Capture FKEY suitcase" file onto the System Folder. The system
will ask if you want it in the Fonts folder (you do). After that,
pressing the CMD-SHIFT-6 three-key combination will convert the cursor
to a crosshairs. Drag a rectangle around the PV, and when you release
the mouse button, the PV will be copied as text to the Clipboard.
You can then copy it into a text editor, email program, etc.
Compatability: Text Capture has been successfully tested on both System
7.5.5. and 8.5 (and believed should work on 9.1)
Tip #2: Recording HIARCS PV history
Sometimes, you'd like to see what HIARCS "thought" about a position
at various search depths. The HIARCS screen display only
shows the PV for the current search depth, but the PV history can be
recorded as an animated GIF using the screen recorder utility
"Gif-gIf-giF", which is available for Windows 3.1, Windows 95,
Windows NT, and Macintosh.
Even the freely downloadable Gif-gIf-giF demo will do this.
The demo is available at
<http://www.peda.com/>
The resulting animated GIF can be viewed by many utilities and
Web browsers, including the downloadable demo of "A Smaller GIF",
available at the same Web site as Gif-gIf-giF.
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