Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: 100:1 NPS Challenge

Author: James T. Walker

Date: 13:18:21 12/18/03

Go up one level in this thread


On December 18, 2003 at 16:07:44, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On December 18, 2003 at 15:53:02, James T. Walker wrote:
>
>>On December 17, 2003 at 13:20:03, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On December 17, 2003 at 13:09:57, Slater Wold wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 17, 2003 at 10:41:24, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On December 17, 2003 at 10:23:26, Matthew Hull wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On December 17, 2003 at 10:21:58, Slater Wold wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On December 17, 2003 at 09:35:16, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>On December 17, 2003 at 09:05:55, Slater Wold wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I guess I will be running the 100:1 NPS challenge.  Here's the info:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I will use any books.bin & bookc.bin that Bob asks me to.  The book.bin will be
>>>>>>>>>created from enormous.pgn.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>My suggestion is to use book.bin, bookc.bin and books.bin from my ftp
>>>>>>>>machine.  book.bin has no learning data so it will start off in the best
>>>>>>>>possible way.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>remove position.bin before game 1.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>And, as I suggested previously, if, after a program leaves book, it is
>>>>>>>>in an obviously won or lost position, the game gets aborted and the next
>>>>>>>>one started.  There is no place for "book kills" when the goal is a time
>>>>>>>>handicap match.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Agreed.  The only loss Crafty has suffered in the Rebel match was a book loss.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>BTW, what were the results of that match?
>>>>>
>>>>>3.5-1.5 for crafty
>>>>>
>>>>>see http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?336433
>>>>>
>>>>>Note that the match is not very interesting for me because it is an open
>>>>>question if Crafty is better than rebel on equal hardware and in WBEC Crafty has
>>>>>13/24 when Rebel has only 10/24
>>>>
>>>>There is no doubt in my mind Rebel is better than Crafty on equal hardware.  And
>>>>I've played, oh, about 5,000 games with Rebel.
>>>
>>>I would take that wager.  We _both_ use quad opterons.
>>>
>>>:)
>>>
>>>Isn't that "equal" by any reasonable definition?  :)
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>How much better is questionable, but it's obviously not 8x.  ;)
>>>>
>>>>>The more interesting question is if Rebel is able to get better result than
>>>>>Crafty in the premier division.
>>>>>
>>>>>Uri
>>
>>;)  They are not running on "equal" hardware if one is using 4 cpus and the
>>other is using only one cpu.  I have several hundred blitz games of Crafty 19.7
>>vs Rebel 12 on 2 XP2400+ machines/auto232.  I call that equal hardware.  In that
>>case Rebel has a slight advantage on Crafty of maybe 30-40 Elo.  (According to
>>the few hundred games so far).
>>Jim
>
>
>That is a bad definition of "equal hardware".  IE if two programs run on a
>PIV 3.06ghz processor, but one uses SSE and the other doesn't, is _that_
>also not equal?  Or one uses hyper-threading and the other doesn't?
>
>"equal hardware" means "platforms are identical".  What a program gets out
>of those equal platforms is another matter.
>
>It takes effort to use that "extra stuff".  I played a couple of challenge
>matches years ago when someone would say "Hey, you are using a Cray, if I
>had something that fast, I could play equal to or better than you."  I had
>them send me their code, I compiled and we played on the same machine, no
>pondering, one cpu each.  What they overlooked was that I had invested a
>lot of work getting the vector hardware to help me.  They hadn't.  So on
>"equal hardware" I was 20x faster than they were and the match was not
>that pretty.
>
>Doing a parallel search takes time.  Does it seem reasonable that my opponent
>uses an extra year to improve his evaluation, while I use an extra year to get
>a good parallel search done, then we say "your parallel search is an unfair
>adevantage?"
>
>It's a different way of thinking about it when you think about it.  Those
>extra CPUs don't just magically make the program faster without a _lot_ of
>design effort and programming work.

:)
There is no denying that you have put in a lot of work on Crafty.  I and many
others really appreciate what you have done.  That still does not make 1=4.  I
wish I had a quad or even a dual to run the "deep" programs on but I don't.
Maybe when the price comes down a little I can get something not quite on the
leading edge that I can afford.  In the mean time, for me, 1=1 and 4 is 4x
larger than 1. :)
I said a few years ago that Crafty was showing the way for others to go in chess
because I believed that CPUs have a practical upper limit of Ghz.  So eventually
all will have to go to multiple cpu operation for more speed.
Again I salute your work but it does not make 1=4. :)
Happy Hollidays,
Jim



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.