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Subject: Re: Bitboard representation

Author: Tom Likens

Date: 07:41:30 09/30/02

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On September 30, 2002 at 04:08:02, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

[snip!]

>I'm no exception to that.

I take the 5th here :)

>But with regard to speed: in assembly the 0x88 is very fast. Otherwise
>much easier to make than all this is using the gnuchess 4.0 datastructure
>(don't get the raped 5.0 versions which are bitboards, but the
>'int board[64]' stuff from before that). It's very easy and can be speeded
>up by good programmers a lot.
>
>I really would go for that gnuchess 4.0 stuff, simply because your thing
>gets a lot easier to write in other parts of the story.

It's interesting but I still use gnuchess 4.0pl80 to test changes to my program.
Especially, now that 5.x has branched off, using the 4.0 series gives me a
stable benchmark to compare against.  Note, many of the commercial
programs are *not* bitboard driven, so they are no magic panacea.  The one
advantage you will have using bitboards is that you have access to the source
code of a strong program that uses them (Crafty).

Just some general advice, no matter what data structures you end up using
you should build in a number of ways to test that your engine is solid.  If you
decide to go with bitboards I would get the non-rotated version going first.
Bitboards are hard enough initially, without rotating everying 45 or 90 degrees.

regards,
--tom



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