Author: Travers Waker
Date: 01:46:28 03/14/02
Go up one level in this thread
The Palm m100 has a Dragonball EZ processor according to
http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/hardware/compare.html . I think it is very
unlikely that your m100 is actually running at 54MHz (even if your overclocking
utility is telling you that it is). Only the Dragonball VZ Processors, as found
in the m500 series, are cabaple of clock speeds like that. You would be lucky
to get your m100 running at even 30MHz. My Palm Vx, which also has an EZ
processor, can only reach 28MHz (which, together with the other speed-ups
Afterburner provides, results in a Chess Tiger 14.7 speed index of 1.11).
If you're interested in how to determine what the highest clock rate is that
your palm reliably supports, read the email (appended below) that I got from
Christophe when I asked him about this issue.
Travers
<email from Christophe>
> I'm running ChessTiger on my Palm Vx. I'm also using Afterburner to
overclock the Palm, but I seem to be experiencing a
> problem:
>
> If I overclock to the maximum that Afternburner will allow (54Mhz),
ChessTiger reports a Tiger Mark of 2.11. I would be very
> happy about this (considering I saw a post by you in ICD Forum saying you
were getting a Tiger Mark of 1.35 on your M505
> clocked at 54Mhz), except that I don't believe it. The clock (the one
that counts down the game time) in Tiger and Genius
> also runs much slower than it should, which is probably why Tiger thinks
it is getting much more work done in a set amount of
> time than it really is.
>
> I remember seeing a post in ICD Forum about this aproximately a week ago,
but it still wasn't clear to me what the
> consequences of this slow clock were. What is the best way to optimize
the strength of Chess Tiger using Afterburner?
>
> Maybe this is a good topic for the FAQ. The Afterburner documentation
doesn't seem to address this clock slow-down. Also,
> if I'm running at 54Mhz without the Palm crashing, but with the clock
running slow, is Tiger playing stronger than it would
> at the highest possible Mhz at which the clock keeps time properly? I
imagine that it is, since it's taking longer than it
> should on each move (since the clock is slow) and it's able to do more in
that time because the CPU is at 54Mhz), but I want
> to know if this is actualyl true. Maybe my CPU just thinks it's running
at 54Mhz, but is really not.
>
> Thanks for any help - and thanks for Chess Tiger. I spend many hours
every week playing with Tiger and Genius, and they're
> very much responsible for my renewed interest in chess.
Your analysis is correct.
This is explained in AfterBurner's documentation.
AfterBurner sets up the computer to overclock it to 54MHz, but the PLL (the
electronic device in charge of the frequency generation) cannot reach the
programmed frequency, and worse, it oscillate between LOWER frequencies.
But AfterBurner does NOT know that there is a problem, and it keeps on
correcting the time as if the computer was actually running at 54MHz.
The result is that the system thinks that the time passes very slowly, and
that's why Chess Tiger believes it can reach this high performance level.
We do not know how to fix this at this time. The programmer of AfterBurner
should try to do something for this. If he does not, and if there exists a
technical solution to fix this (or at least to warn the user), we will
implement it in Chess Tiger.
So what should you do now?
You should set AfterBurner to the highest frequency which still gives an
accurate time measurement.
1) set the frequency with AfterBurner
2) start Chess Tiger and execute the "Speed test" (this not only displays a
performance index, but also tries to adjust Chess Tiger's clock to the
computer's speed)
3) let the program think for approx. one minute (the position does not
matter) and check Chess Tiger's clock with a stopwatch
Repeat steps 1, 2 and 3 until Chess Tiger's clock matches your stopwatch.
Step 2 is very important, don't forget to do it every time you change your
Palm's speed.
Most Palms cannot run higher than 29MHz. Maybe it's the case of your Palm
Vx.
The Chess Tiger technical support
support@chesstiger.com
http://www.chesstiger.com
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