Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: What does the number of nodes represent?

Author: John Coffey

Date: 13:38:53 09/18/98


When a computer (such as crafty) lists the number of nodes that it has looked
at, does the number represent all the variations in the tree examines or does
it represent only the leaf positions evaluated?

On a 200mhz computer, Fritz5 claims to examine 200,000 positions per second, and
Crafty only about 80,000 per second.  Yesterday I was only getting about 50,000
positions per second out of Crafty on a 400 mhz PII, so I wonder how
much Windows 95 drags down the search?  Could this be a reason why some chess
programs still use DOS?

Even if we accept the Fritz numbers, we are still talking about a thousand
clock cycles per "node."  Offhand that seems like a lot.  If someone were
to write an engine that was strictly tactical (like a mate search), I wonder how
many clock cycles it would need per node?   It makes me wonder if chess
algorithms could not be optimized somewhat?  (I am not saying that they can
be optimized, just that I am wondering about it.)

Best wishes,

John Coffey



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.