Author: Joachim Rang
Date: 12:07:25 02/15/04
Go up one level in this thread
On February 15, 2004 at 12:30:03, Bob Durrett wrote: >On February 15, 2004 at 11:47:04, Joachim Rang wrote: > >>On February 15, 2004 at 10:40:47, Peter Skinner wrote: >> >>>On February 15, 2004 at 09:38:33, Bob Durrett wrote: >>> >>>> >>>>Chess commentary: >>>> >>>>The days of the software programmers are fast coming to an end. >>>> >>>>The days of the "hardware programmers" are just beginning. >>>> >>>>Bob D. >>> >>>Well truth be told, this is the first "good" result for the Brutus/Hydra team. >>>Nothing can be concluded from just 7 games. It was the best at this tournament, >>>but what is to say at the next one it only scores 3.5/7.0? >>> >>>Now flip the coin on a software program. Let's take Gandalf (which happens to be >>>one of my favorite programs). It did not score as well as I had hoped, yet the >>>minute the new version goes on sale, I will be purchasing it. >>> >>>7 games is really meaningless. It is a crap shoot that Hydra won, and next year >>>can easily lose. Luck plays a big part in it. This is _exactly_ why the rating >>>lists (SSDF, Chess Fun's rating list...) are so important. They show many games >>>vs the same opponent, but also many games vs a wide array of opponents to attain >>>a reasonable rating and top program and error margins. >>> >>>You must also factor in that Hydra is hardware based and whatever advantage it >>>had today can be gone as soon as tomorrow. Software can evolve faster than >>>hardware, thus any advantage can easily be erased with a few key strokes. >>> >> >>sorry that I didn't put it in my first post, but here you err again. >> >>The prospects for FPGA-based solutions regarding to hardware-development are >>_much_ nicer than to CPU-based programs. Together with that the >>Hydra-FPGA-Solution is not a one-time card but can be updated several times: So >>you buy the card one time and update the software for the card several times. > >Software on the card? That is terrible! When will they ever learn? > >That makes Hydra not much better than a mini-PC for chess. : ( > >Bob D. > most probably not software but you can flash it or something like that I don'T know the details, but you can change things on the card. >> >> >>>Personally I have stopped playing the "hardware" game in regards to chess. If it >>>is fast enough to run the programs I use, then it is good enough for me. I tried >>>keeping up with the hardware that comes out, but it gets costly, and frankly I >>>can spend my money elsewhere. >>> >>>I read in a survey on a tech website, and I think it was Anandtech that the >>>average home user computer is still only a 1.5 Ghz P4 computer or below. Only >>>12% were at a level where they had the most up to date hardware. So that leaves >>>88% of the computing population that filled out the survey that use "sub-par" >>>systems in every day computing in regards to chess. >>> >>>I would rather pay for excellent software than upgrade a cpu every 6 weeks like >>>some do on the chess servers. >>> >>>The SSDF still uses an Athlon 1200 MHZ computer to do it's testing, and that is >>>fine by me. It relates more to the hardware I use, and I can reflect that in the >>>testing I do personally. >>> >>>Peter.
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