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Subject: Re: Hsu Presents a Paper at

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 11:53:12 06/25/98

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On June 25, 1998 at 14:07:31, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:

>
>On June 25, 1998 at 12:15:09, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On June 25, 1998 at 08:07:53, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>On June 25, 1998 at 06:35:40, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>On June 25, 1998 at 04:54:02, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Here's another question about Hsu's chess chip. I seem to recall reading some
>>>>>time ago that Hsu was considering a commercial release of his chip. Does anyone
>>>>>know anything more about this? If the chip were to become available, how could I
>>>>>use it in conjunction with a PC? would the fixed depth not be "out of sync" for
>>>>>the speed of, eg a Pentium 333Mhz if it was designed to work with a
>>>>>supercomputer, or can the fixed depth be adjusted to redo the balancing act in
>>>>>the new environment? If it were possible, I would be very interested in
>>>>>experimenting with this sort of hardware coupling. I assume that it would extend
>>>>>the depth to which a program could search by something like 4 extra plies within
>>>>>the same time. This would surely improve the strength of the PC ches programs
>>>>>quite a lot!
>>>>>
>>>>>Roberto
>>>>
>>>>You see it wrong. If you do 4 ply searches without hash etc, then
>>>>2.5 million drops quickly to say 300k nodes a second.
>>>>
>>>>So in fact you're playing against a kind of fritz5, which DOES search
>>>>all leafs fullwidth, which gives you some extra tactics, so commercial against
>>>>programs which are only tested at the same hardware and are only
>>>>busy with outbooking and trying to finish the game by means of tactics,
>>>>you beat with big numbers then, but it will play horrible.
>>>>
>>>>Vincent
>>>
>>>Hi Vincent,
>>>
>>>I'm not sure I understand - can you explain what yo mean. I do use hash tables -
>>>would not the Chip have access to my system's RAM? And When you say it would
>>>play horribly, why so? how could the chip make it play any worse than without
>>>the chip?
>>>
>>>Best wishes,
>>>
>>>Roberto
>>
>>
>>you have to ignore part of what vincent writes, because he is an "anti-deepblue"
>>person from way back.  A couple of key points:
>>
>>1.  no a chess processor could not see your RAM.  But they do have their own
>>hash table memory.
>>
>>2.  a PC program with one of these chips attached would be far and away stronger
>>than any existing computer chess program running on a PC.  A chess board that
>>they used had 8 processors n it.  A PC could use the same approach, and search
>>at about 20 million nodes per second.
>>
>>I pointed out to Vincent last week here that he was not doing well playing
>>against Crafty.  He pointed out (factually, by the way) that Crafty has a
>>hardware advantage with the 4 processor ALR.  But he's going to have to take
>>a stand on one side of the fence or the other.  Either speed is important, and
>>his note about me having faster hardware does explain why crafty wins most of
>>the games played on ICC, or speed is not important and doesn't explain crafty's
>>win/lose ratio vs the various DiepX programs on ICC.
>>
>>I believe in a combination of speed and intelligent.  DB has that.  A PC-card
>>with one or more DB processors would *still* have that.  And it would produce
>>unheard-of performance figures for a PC-based chess program.  Ala' Deep Blue
>>Junior, which is basically a PC with a chess board (actually an IBM single-cpu
>>workstation with a VME-bus chess card, so don't start hoping to buy one of those
>>and plug it into your PCI bus.  :)
>>
>>Bob
>
>Thanks bob. I begin to get the picture. I must say that in the search strategy
>department I have an instinctive leaning toward your way of thinking. I truly
>believe that speed matters very much, and I cannot understand why Vincent is
>"anti-DB". (unless it's to do with IBM's motives, rather than their achievements
>- I think the former sucks, but the latter is truly monumental) I think it is a
>great pity if Hsu's chip is not to be made available for PC users. I'm just
>itching to get my hands on that sort of search speed! If anyone who reads this
>post is going to attend the conference, would they please enquire if there are
>any plans to release the chip in a form we could use?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Roberto


No idea about their plans.  I once told Hsu that if they disband the project,
I knew a "deserving young man" that would go out and *buy* a VME-bus machine
to use one of their boards...  :)




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