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Subject: Re: Improvements in BF makes my MoveGen suck =(

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 17:04:29 06/27/03

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On June 27, 2003 at 19:48:44, Sune Fischer wrote:

>On June 27, 2003 at 19:04:04, Steve Maughan wrote:
>
>>Sune,
>>
>>>Perft is no good speed indicator anyway, not even for a move gen.
>>>The perft tree is so different from the chess tree.
>>>
>>>Optimizing for perft is basicly like building a formula 1 car to use for
>>>off-road rally.
>>
>>I don't agree.  Perft is *quite* a good thing to optimize.  There are really
>>four fundamental foundations of a good chess program -
>>
>>1) Evaluation
>>2) Move Ordering
>>3) Make / Unmake moves
>>4) Generate Moves
>
>This "box" thinking is not optimal I think.
>It is better to think like this:
>
>strength = engine(eval,moveordering,make/unmake,genmoves,...);
>
>There is no reason why you shouldn't be mixing them, like e.g. in Rebel.
>
>>There are of course other elements (e.g. extension) but these four elements IMO
>>are the key elements.  Perft directly measures the performance of the last two
>>elements.  Some would say that the speed of move generation is not that
>>important and this is true to a certain extent since time spent in the GenMove
>>routine is often less than 10%.  However, if you can generate moves quickly you
>>will most likely also be able to generate mobility quickly - an element of the
>>evaluation function.  So I would argue that perft goes some way to measuring
>>three out of the four factors I've listed.
>
>I can't think if a simple analogy here, so I will give you a mathematical
>example.
>
>Find the maximum of f(x,y) for x,y in [some interval].
>You can think of x as move generator and y as eval.
>
>If you know that f(x,y)=g(x)+h(y) for some functions g and h, then you can find
>max for f by maximixing g and h.
>
>However you do not know such functions exist, and there is no reason to believe
>they would. In my experience hybrid functions tend to be the most powerful
>solutions.
>
>If you are determained to get the fastest possible make move, then that excludes
>the use of attack tables, this will come back to haunt you in the search and the
>eval.

And this is also counter productive for perft because if you have fast
make move then you cannot use attack tables for faster move generation.

I believe that this is the reason that Movei was faster than Sharp in
calculating perft.

 IMO it's very clear that it makes little sense to optimize a
>makemove+movegen without considering the remaining program.

I agree but I think that the difference between the things is not big.

>
>Suppose you use 50% of the time in eval and 20% in makemove+movegen, now you
>slow down makemove a factor two but speed up eval also by a factor two.
>Would you not think of this as a good decision? I would.

Yes but for calculating perft the speed of the move generator is also important
and if I make my makemove slower then I can make my movegen faster.

for perft 2 I make only the legal moves in one ply but generates the legal moves
of all the games of 2 plies.

>
>>It's other advantage is that you can't cheat with perft - i.e. for any given
>>position there is a certain number of nodes that represent perft 5.  This is in
>>contrast to Node Per Second where it's not clear what constitutes a node.  So
>>you can see and objectively measure your perft times against other engines.
>
>Yes nps doesn't compare, you can't compare speeds that simple in chess progs,
>the best you can do is time to solution, or of course play matches.
>
>What is really misleading about perft, is the topology of the search space.
>It is very artificial compared to a realistic tree. You know in perft that you
>will be needing all the moves you generate, you never generate a wasted move.
>If you optimize for this, you are setting up your engine to go fast on the wrong
>track. I make/ummake moves at the last ply in perft, that means my genmove takes
>only 10-15%, the remaining 85% is pure make/unmake, as can be seen in a profile.
>
>If I wanted a fast perft I'd only have to optimize my makemove, if I could move
>the big load into genmove I'd go a lot faster.


No
It is better for you not to make the last ply but only generate legal moves.


 However in a *real* search you
>don't get to make all the moves you generate, so that means the genmoves would
>profile-wise be just as important as makemove, perhaps.

In real perft I also do not make most of the moves that I generate so
you see that for me it is similiar.

Uri



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