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Subject: Re: Two programs on a single PC (was: CM6000 Just ...)

Author: Kai Skibbe

Date: 03:59:50 12/04/98

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On December 04, 1998 at 06:47:56, Didzis Cirulis wrote:

>On December 04, 1998 at 05:00:23, Kai Skibbe wrote:
>
>>On December 04, 1998 at 03:02:50, Didzis Cirulis wrote:
>>
>>>On December 04, 1998 at 01:53:03, Kai Skibbe wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 03, 1998 at 23:26:30, Vicente Fernández wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On December 03, 1998 at 19:13:41, Micheal Cummings wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>I get the impression that because CM6000 is very cheap to buy then people do not
>>>>>>consider it to be very strong.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well with the amount of money that the Chessmaster programs pull in, I think
>>>>>>that the guy who programs the kings engine would also be pulling in allot of
>>>>>>money, and thus would have the resources to make such a strong engine even
>>>>>>stronger.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>CM6000 is marketed for the mass public, and because it does not have an
>>>>>>autoplayer and cannot play against other programs unsupervised, that alot of
>>>>>>people dismiss CM6K and for that matter the versions before, because of the lack
>>>>>>of results against other programs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>And I have already started to see that CM6K has been pulling in some very good
>>>>>>results in tournaments already, and all I hear, is "what a suprise". Anyone who
>>>>>>has been using Chessmaster since CM5000, knows that it is very strong.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well I hope CM6K does beat the other programs if anyone out there will play it
>>>>>>manually (too SSDF members), just to shut up people who keep making comments
>>>>>>that this cheap software program, which sells more than any other chess program
>>>>>>100 times over. Cannot be strong.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>And to Mindscape, put in a damn autoplayer so you can shut all these people up
>>>>>>and kick their sorry butt.
>>>>>
>>>>>I have manually played 4 games between CM6000 an fritz 5.1, 60-60, on a k62-300
>>>>>with 128 ram.  Chessmaster 6000 leads 3 to 1, winning both games with black.
>>>>>Using the thinking lines window I can see that chessmaster gets a more accurate
>>>>>evaluation of the positions and, most important, "sees" drawbacks and mates
>>>>>before Fritz 5 does.  Although the number of games played manually doesn´t count
>>>>>statistically, I can tell for sure that CM6000 is very, very strong, maybe the
>>>>>strongest... who knows?  And, I agree with Mr. Cummings: cheap is not weak, and,
>>>>>surely, everybody would like to see an autoplayer on the new King version.
>>>>
>>>>Do you play the games on one computer ? In this case the match is unfair for the
>>>>opponent of chessmaster, because cm6000 uses the processor even if you have
>>>>played the match with permanent brain of.
>>>>Conclusion : No matches with cm6000 on one computer !
>>>>
>>>>Best regards
>>>>Kai
>>>Wrong! Although you are right in regard that CM is a processor hog even with the
>>>permanent brain off, one can still have a fair match between any two programs if
>>>some testing and calculations are done before.
>>
>>I think it is not wrong ! I only said that you can not play fair matches with
>>cm6000. Matches between Fritz5 and Rebel 10 for example are possible. Other
>>programs that worked are Shredder and Junior.
>>
>>Or how do you configure the programs to do a fair match ?
>>
>>Kai
>
>Ok, Kai :-) Let's go over it in couple of words:
>
>So, What do we have - a single PC and any two programs. And we are mad with
>desire to test the programs we have got as fair as possible. Right?
>
>Step one: make sure both programs can be run with the permanent brain off. For
>example, it is difficult for Nimzo 98 as there is no PB on/off option in this
>program.
>
>Step two: For dos programs make sure they get as much processor power as
>possible when active and gets suspended when unactive. (See Christophe's
>comments above.)
>
>Step three: find out the Hash sizes your programs can afford. Example: On my 32
>Mb RAM system, I usually give 8 Mb of hash to both programs to avoid any
>swapping. This IS important, as swaping makes everything useless.
>
>
>Step four: Imagine there is an amount of calculations that should be done by a
>program, say, 1 milion positions. And now you should do some testing:
> Situation (all numbers are given as an example only!):
>
>   1)  get the time used by the program A when it runs alone:    100 seconds
>   2)  same task, same program A, but program B is there
>       unactive in the background, and hogs some computing power: 140 seconds
>
>   3)  get the time used by the program B when it runs alone:    120 seconds
>   4)  same task, same program B, but program A is there
>       unactive in the background, and hogs some computing power: 125 seconds
>
>   So, in both situations it may happen that program runs slower if another one
>sits there in the background.
>
>Step five: Calculations!
>    Formula:
>     koeficient =(result with a "hog" in background)/ (result if alone)
>
>    For program A it makes: 140/100=1.4
>    For program B it makes: 125/120=1.042
>
>Step six: Let's say we want to play at 30 minutes per game level. What do we do
>now is the calculation of the times needed by both programs:
>
>   For program A: 30 minutes x 1.4 = 42 minutes
>   For program B: 30 minutes x 1.042 = 31.26 minutes or let's say 31 minute.
>
>Final step: we give Program A the 42 minutes for the game, and 31 minute to
>Program B, and :-)
>
>Run all tests 3 times! Sometimes it is required to restart the program every
>time to be sure we get the same situation again.
>
>This is the way we can make a fair match even on a single PC where both programs
>are busy stealing the computing power from each other :-)
>
>There may be different practical applications of this. One program may have some
>built-in test that is very convenient for this purpose, but another one may be
>tested running a test position at a fixed depth. Or there may be programs where
>you should disable Book, and run the initial position as a test position... Ask
>me if any problems.
>
>Didzis

Thanks for your detailed explanation :-)
I will try this.....

Kai




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