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Subject: Re: Intel Hyperthreading and Ponder (Permanent Brain)

Author: Steven J. Brann

Date: 08:24:19 01/02/04

Go up one level in this thread


On January 02, 2004 at 11:05:41, Anthony Cozzie wrote:

>On January 02, 2004 at 09:57:38, Jasmine Baer wrote:
>
>>I've seen it written that under the following conditions:
>>
>>1.  Engine vs. Engine match or tournament
>>2.  Held on a single computer with a single processor
>>
>>having ponder=ON(or Permanent Brain in the Fritz GUI) will impact the play of
>>the engines since the each individual engine would not have full access to the
>>processor during its own turn.
>>
>>First, is this true?
>>
>>Second, is this issue, if it actually is an issue, something that is eliminated
>>by running a two-processor system?
>>
>>And, finally, does anyone have any solid insight on how ponder=off/on or
>>Permanent Brain works on a Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading?
>>
>>Thanks.
>
>Ponder means that the engine thinks while its opponent moves.  Since there is
>only 1 cpu, and both engines are thinking, they get half the cpu.
>
>HT is garbage for computer chess.  A pentium 4 is ONE core.  HT is designed for
>applications that spend most of their time in the memory system.
>
>anthony

To me, my 3.0G HT machine is NOT garbage for computer chess.  When it is
thinking about a position it takes up 50% of the CPU and is still much much
faster than my 1.9G P4 machine.  When analyzing a position with my 1.9G P4, the
machine would be rendered useless for using any other application while it was
thinking about a position.

So, HT enables me to accomplish other things on the machine at the same time ...
email, reviewing this site, chat with video, Word, Excel ... and
performance-wise its as if the chess program isn't running at all.  I'm
analyzing a position as I write this.

That means a lot to ME.  Certainly not garbage in my opinion.

Steve




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