Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 07:12:00 11/12/01
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On November 11, 2001 at 23:29:35, Aloisio Ponti Lopes wrote: >My questions: > >1) What's your impression of the Unix market for Chess? Ah the unix fairy tale. the current software activation and one computer license plans are good for the linux folks. In fact i am sure i would not have a fulltime linux box without it. but reality learns that chess is just a game, like there are other games. Chess however has a great history and professional players, which makes chess more interesting. No average user caan work with linux. I can't even get an audio-cd run from within linux... ...and i work for 7 years now with it. Linux is by far best developed unix clone for most users. For professional usage things like Solaris, Freebsd, HP-UX and other unix environments are great environments for professional users, but professional users do not buy games. At home they have a windows PC, that's reality. For professional game development UNIX is a joke. It's pure amateuristic. It was a command line operating system and it still is. In that it's superb and will remain superb. Chess is a 2d graphical game however, so there is little place for computerchess in unix, other than that for example my engine DIEP is one of the few which run under nearly all unix clones (tested at solaris, hp-ux, linux) and also parallel there. >(UnixWare/SCO/AIX/IRIX/Solaris/NetBSD/OpenBSD/FreeBSD/HP-UX/Digital-Unix) >Would you consider a port of your program for Unix? It already works many years superb on linux and solaris. >2) What's your impression of the Linux market for Chess? >Would you consider a port of your program for Linux? It already works there. No i do not consider a graphical port of DIEP there. just the thought of it is already a joke. There aren't even good libraries for it. Unless you want to pay $3000 for a product like QT, in order to sell a handfull of versions. >3) What do you think about the AMD x Intel struggle? good for the competition. AMD right now has a clear lead in both performance speed. Even more important, as DIEP is parallel, is that AMD nowadays works also SMP. The SMP used by AMD processors is more or less the same superb SMP like Alpha used to have. In fact it's better, because the AMD processor is better! Though it only works dual this means in short that AMD has a parallel domination when talking about 2 processor machines. Of course the PR department from intel is 100x more professional than AMD and their trick to sell a 2Ghz processor versus AMD a 1.6Ghz processor is of course PR technical a good thing for intel. >4) Would you consider optimizing the code to run your program using an Alpha >processor? Because i'm in C, optimizing for alpha is not much different from optimizing for K7, P4. The drawbacks from the alpha processor are 100% the same like K7 and P4 nowadays. Alpha was never fast for me. 633Mhz 21164 performed like 380Mhz PII for me. There is not a single positive thing to say about alpha processors nowadays, other than that i'm glad i never bought one. Despite the big criticism against Sun, it always was faster for me than an alpha processor. Obviously for supercomputers things might be different. Obviously for home chess usage these processors are not in the same league like a dual 1.6Ghz K7 is nowadays, because they are 2 times lower clocked. >5) Do you agree with Microsoft's idea of "Software Activation" ? Would it be >aplicable to the Unix / Linux World ? No i don't agree with the 1 license for 1 computer policyf rom m$. It's clearly only possible because of their domination. There are many unix clones, so it's impossible it would ever work in unix/linux world because there is competition where, which m$ doesn't have for windows. m$ would never been able to launch software activation and similar plans when there would be competition there for them. Regrettable there is no competition for them, but their policy now definitely shows how bad it is if a world is without competition. >6) What's your impression about 3D graphics and Chess? What about the multimedia >resources? Aren't both 3d and multimedia neglected nowadays? 3d graphics are good for on the box and very hard to make. I'd suggest making 3d graphics in unix and see how much pain it is there :) Practical i never play with 3d, because a monitor is representing everything in 2d. It has a x b pixels. So playing a chessgame 3d on a 2d monitor is kind of stupid from practical viewpoint. If we get alternatives for monitors, for example a helmet with build in virtual reality, then 3d is going to get an attractive alternative. 3d on a 2d monitor for chess is good for sales perhaps, but it definitely is a joke from practical viewpoint. >A. Ponti
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