Author: Slater Wold
Date: 01:37:23 03/30/02
Go up one level in this thread
On March 30, 2002 at 03:59:58, Dann Corbit wrote: >On March 30, 2002 at 03:07:29, Slater Wold wrote: > >>Dan Corbit once called Crafty the "N-Reactor of Chess Engines". If this is >>true, I might be creating the worlds largest N-Reactor Chess Program. >> >> >>In the coming months, I will be working with a few people to create a hardware >>based move generator for Crafty. I myself have written my own chess program >>over the last few years, however find it inadequate for this project, mostly >>because it's too simple. (Man, I am a glutton.) A 10M nps (basic) alpha/beta >>search will prove nothing, while a "tried and true" engine like Crafty will >>truly show the power of nodes. How does a 2M nps Crafty compare with a 10M nps >>Crafty? Well, that's my question! >> >>The hardware will consist of a single FPGA on a PCI card that will be inserted >>into the host computer. The FPGA will be used for move ordering (and returning >>those moves in a predefined order) and generating all legal moves and passing >>them back to the software. >> >>My goal in this project is to answer the age-old question, which is better, >>quality or quantity? >> >>I will be using the version of Crafty that is newest release when I begin. And >>all tests/comparisons will of course be done with the same version. The true >>value of "hardware speedup" will be obvious here. >> >>My long-term goals are as follows: >> >>1.) to determine whether or not a significant nps increase will strengthen >>Crafty's performance by a considerable margin; >> >>2.) to determine the relation between Elo and nps; >> >>3.) to determine if greater nps actual make and engine "smarter" >> >> >> >>When the times comes, if Crafty shows a performance gain of greater than 100 Elo >>points, I will investigate further by creating more nps. For example: >> >>If the standard version of Crafty is running on today’s top SMP machine (Dual >>AMD 1.73Ghz), and is estimated at 2300 Elo at 1.8M nps, and the HW based Crafty >>is running on a single FPGA (HW based move generator), and is estimated at 2400 >>Elo at 10M nps, then what if we speed it up to 100M nps? What will the >>estimated Elo be then? >> >> >>While not everything I find in this test will be consistent with other engines, >>it should give a good idea on what's to be expected. There will surely be >>people who disagree and/or contest my findings; therefore I will try my best to >>document everything I have to support my findings (games, test suites, etc.). >> >>In the spirit of Crafty, everything that will be done will be open source, and >>available to anyone on the Internet. It is also my intention to create a >>website dedicated to this project. It will contain >>games/suites/sources/findings and everything else from this project. However, I >>will not make the source and/or program available until I deem them suited to be >>released (in other words, working). >> >>The timetable looks like this: >> >> >>~3 months: Setup the hardware (write a device driver for the PCI card). Also >>work on a GUI for Crafty. >> >>~6 months: Design the move generator. >> >>~2 months: Integrate HW with SW. (Complete the GUI) >> >> >>Hopefully before Christmas 2002, the HW based Crafty will be playing on Internet >>servers and data will be available. >> >> >>Any questions/comments/ideas are welcomed. Anyone willing to offer something to >>this project will be welcomed with a smile, and a psychiatrist. ;) >> >>I want to thank Robert Hyatt for Crafty, and everything he has done for me, and >>the Computer Chess community. > >Why do you need a GUI for Crafty? >There are: >Arena >Winboard >ChessBase >Chess Assistant > >and probably others. > >Seems to me that the hardware end of things will be enough bother. When I use Crafty, I almost always use it in Console. Very rarely do I have an interface. There are certain things I like to see when using a Chess Engine, like #1 the PV and #2 the board. ;) The only choices I have based on that criteria is Chessbase and CA. CA never worked well when I used it. And I was afraid the Chessbase GUI might puke. I just wanted to make an interface that was *very* light (like winboard) however showed the PV and thinking lines. I doubt I'll make a whole new interface, but I wanted something more customized to me. Perhaps I'll just customize Winboard. ;)
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