Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Hashing in distributed perft

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 05:29:00 12/19/03

Go up one level in this thread


On December 19, 2003 at 08:21:32, Uri Blass wrote:

>On December 19, 2003 at 08:18:43, Steffen Jakob wrote:
>
>>On December 19, 2003 at 08:11:51, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On December 19, 2003 at 08:06:28, Steffen Jakob wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 19, 2003 at 05:45:00, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On December 19, 2003 at 02:27:17, Steffen Jakob wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On December 19, 2003 at 01:24:27, Russell Reagan wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On December 19, 2003 at 01:00:31, Steffen Jakob wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I repeat my posting from below because the ruffian thread pushed it very fast to
>>>>>>>>the bottom of the message list. :)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>What are you using for the hash key in your distributed perft implementation?
>>>>>>>>How do you make sure that there are no hash key collisions which are possible in
>>>>>>>>the usual zobrist key approach? Those collisions are too rare to influence the
>>>>>>>>playing strength of a chess engine but would make the result of your perft
>>>>>>>>project invalid.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I remember Albert saying that he uses 128-bit hash keys, which is not
>>>>>>>theoretically sound, but should work in practice. Deiter also uses hash tables
>>>>>>>for this I think. Maybe he can tell us what he does.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I like this distributed perft project very much (and contributed 4 solutions to
>>>>>>subproblems ;-) but the only reason why we are doing this is to get the *exact*
>>>>>>number of lines. Even if it is wrong by one line then the result is wrong and
>>>>>>the whole effort was rather useless. Even if the result is correct then we
>>>>>>cannot be sure about it. Therefore I would propose to run a validation without
>>>>>>hash tables. Can it be estimated how long this would take?
>>>>>
>>>>>I do not see a reason not to use hash tables when it is possible to use hash
>>>>>tables and be safe with 192 bytes.
>>>>
>>>>Can you tell me the likelihood that an error will occur because of an undetected
>>>>hash key collision? If you can then you can say "perft(n) == x with a likelihood
>>>>of p%". If you canĀ“t then how can I trust a result from which I know that it
>>>>might be incorrect? Why not make p=100 for the case of the hash table errors
>>>>(e.g. by storing the complete board information in the hash entry [but not in
>>>>the key])?
>>>>
>>>>Greetings,
>>>>Steffen.
>>>
>>>192 bits are enough to get different hash key for different positions so there
>>>is no problem with hash tables.
>>
>>If you use pseudo-random numbers for zobrist hashing it is always possible to
>>get a collision. Yes, this is paranoid. :-)
>
>No need to use pseudo random numbers.
>
>It is possible to store all the board with 192 bits easily as was explained in
>another post.
>
>Uri

Here is the relevant post.

Uri



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.