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Subject: Re: 8 CPU ver 1 or 2 CPU computer question..

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 17:09:52 10/08/02

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On October 08, 2002 at 19:22:44, Omid David wrote:

>On October 08, 2002 at 14:37:39, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 08, 2002 at 14:29:02, Rex wrote:
>>
>>>I agree that dual or more processors are faster.  My question is the effeciency
>>>of search may be decrease.  The weight of a given move may be decreased when its
>>>way down the tree. The differences of move weight gets less efficiant when the
>>>tree search gets deeper and deeper.  Calculating what would be the best move
>>>based on score may not be the best move at all.  Figuring this calculation deep
>>>in the search tree is probably imposible until that particular move arrives 1 to
>>>2 moves deep.  Then it may be too late.
>>
>>
>>By faster, I don't mean "faster NPS only".
>>
>>I mean that if it takes one 1ghz processor 3 minutes to search to depth X, then
>>the two
>>1ghz machine should take significantly less than 3 minutes to reach that same
>>depth X.
>>
>>For Crafty, the rough number is about 1.7.  IE if it takes 3 minutes for one
>>cpu, then it will
>>take around 1.7 minutes to do the same search using two cpus.  For Crafty, the
>>NPS will
>>be closer to 2x faster using two cpus, but the "search efficiency" you mentioned
>>drops
>>the overall performance gain down to 1.7X or so... (again, this is an _average_
>>number,
>>for those that like to question it.  Some positions speed up more than 2.0 times
>>faster,
>>other speed up significanly less than 2.0 times faster.  The overall _average_
>>seems to
>>hover around 1.7 for Crafty.  YMMV on other programs or on different hardware.)
>
>
>And how will Crafty perform on say 8 processors? Is there any limit for number
>of processors, or the more the processors the better the performance of Crafty?


I have run it on 16, but I have been unable to test it enough to see what
happens to the
speedup= 1 + (N-1)*.7 formula.  I'm pretty sure it won't hold true up at that
end of the
number of processors.  It works fine for 1-4, and it seemed to work ok for an
8-cpu test
I ran, but non-intel-based hardware.  I will answer this question one day.  But
one thing
is for sure, I don't ever expect to see more = worse performance, although it is
possible
that more != better performance...



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