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Subject: Re: Is more hash better? My tests say the opposite...

Author: Michael P. Nance Sr.

Date: 13:54:58 09/01/03

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On September 01, 2003 at 14:23:51, Uri Blass wrote:

>On September 01, 2003 at 13:20:48, Michael P. Nance Sr. wrote:
>
>>On August 31, 2003 at 21:18:58, Ross Boyd wrote:
>>
>>>On August 31, 2003 at 19:44:28, William Penn wrote:
>>>
>>>>The more hash I allocate, the slower the kN/s speed. Thus 4MB (the minimum) is
>>>>the fastest in my tests, typically about 450kN/s. If I increase that to say
>>>>256MB hash, the speed slows down to about 400kN/s. The more I increase hash, the
>>>>slower the kN/s speed.
>>>>
>>>>The kN/s speed peaks, then eventually starts to decrease. How long this takes
>>>>depends on the amount of hash. However in my tests, the long term speed
>>>>advantage of bigger hash never catches up with the long term speed obtained with
>>>>smaller hash. Thus I don't see any advantage whatsoever to using a hash table!
>>>>The opposite seems to be true!?
>>>>
>>>>I'm using the Shredder7 GUI, Shredder 7.04 UCI engine, AMD XP Athlon 2400+/640MB
>>>>RAM (608MB available). The GUI says the maximum I can allocate to hash is about
>>>>455MB, so I'm not near the limit. Of course I'm using fairly common practical
>>>>positions for these tests in Infinite Analysis mode, and the above indicated
>>>>results are typical.
>>>>
>>>>I get very similar results running Shreddermarks with different size hash. The
>>>>more hash, the lower the Shreddermark and corresponding kN/s.
>>>>
>>>>Now, will someone please refute this, or explain what I'm missing or
>>>>overlooking? Thanks!
>>>>WP
>>>
>>>Increasing the hash size will tend to lower the NPS in most engines.
>>>
>>>Its kind of hard to explain why this is so... but I'll try. When an engine gets
>>>a hit in the hashtable it often cuts short the amount of exhaustive quiescence
>>>searching where NPS tends to go high. Nearer the root there is generally more
>>>overhead involved, with for example, more sophisticated move ordering etc...
>>>whereas the move ordering at the QS tends to be cruder and hence faster.
>>>
>>>Anyway, its not a bad thing....
>>>
>>>What is more important is the total number of nodes visited to get to a certain
>>>depth. You will see that increasing hash size will tend to reduce the tree...
>>>and therefore (even though NPS drops slightly) the actual time taken to get to a
>>>given depth is reduced (usually).
>>>
>>>Time how long Shredder takes to get to a given depth, and also the total nodes
>>>visited, with various positions for two hash sizes.  You'll see the true benefit
>>>of increasing the hash size.
>>>
>>>If you turn off the hash altogether you'll see the NPS increase a lot... but its
>>>not going to play stronger that's for sure...
>>>
>>>So, NPS is not a measure of strength. Really, its only useful for comparison
>>>purposes of the same engine with the same hash size on 2 different PCs.
>>>
>>>Hope this makes sense...
>>>
>>>Ross
>>
>>I will tell You this,when I demisish the Hash,(32,64,128,ect),I get beat. When I
>>go "FULL THROTTLE",or optimise the Hash,(819), I usually beat the same Box and
>>Program that I couldn't beat with a lower Hash setting.>>>>Mike
>
>I am not surprised.
>If you give your program a big hash table and another application is running the
>big hash tables is too much and it needs to read from the hard disk so it may
>become very slow.
>
>I suggest not to give your program more than 1/2 of the RAM of your machine.
>The possible advantage of few elo points is not enough to complensate for the
>risk.
>
>You may even decide not to give more than 1/4 of the RAM of your machine and
>still the program play at almost optimal strength.
>
>Uri

Thanks Uri,I will get it a try. Using and playing with the Programs is a
learning experience and One should play around until You find the "SWEET
SPOT".>>>>Mike



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