Author: Sune Fischer
Date: 14:38:34 04/14/04
Go up one level in this thread
On April 14, 2004 at 16:47:57, Tord Romstad wrote: >On April 14, 2004 at 13:44:54, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On April 14, 2004 at 10:38:52, martin fierz wrote: >> >>>but you can't say that it's a coincidence! SSDF tests what 99% of all users >>>have. and that IMO is the right thing to do. a commercial programmer simply >>>can't emphasize multiprocessing to a big extent, because the time spent on that >>>is "wasted" in a commercial sense. >> >>How then do you explain: >> >>deep fritz >>deep shredder >>deep junior >>deep sjeng >> >>for starters. There are more SMP commercial engines than there are non-SMP >>commercial engines... > >I am not so sure about that. Are there any commercial SMP engines except >those you mention above? I could easily mention much more than four >commercial engines which do not yet have SMP support. > >And even though several commercial SMP engines exist, I doubt that their >authors have spent anywhere near as much effort on parallel code as you >have done. How well do you think they scale beyond 2 or 4 processors? You have a point, but I think Bob is right that technology is moving towards SMP in general. >>All the non-SMP guys will then be struggling to catch up... >> >>Those that look ahead architecturally will already "be there". > >But everybody don't have the same goals and interests for the future as >you. To me, chess programming on desktop computers is beggining to get >less interesting already today, because those computers are already so >damn fast. It is no longer a very difficult task to create a PC program >which beats 99.99% of all chess players. Further improvement has mainly >academic interest, except for a tiny group of elite players. I think the programmes are best suited to do analysis, for that they can never become too strong. Sure they can play on their own and that's what makes it fun for us to develop them, but personally I find it more enjoyable to play against humans and I think most others do also. >I consider it a much more interesting challenge to make an engine that >plays well even on small handheld computers and mobile phones. Not only >is it more difficult to make a good engine with limited memory and a slow >processor, handheld devices are also a much more pleasant platform for >playing chess. At best you only buy yourself a few more years, good handhelds today have >64 MB memory and quite fast chips. If you are not careful your target hardware platform will be outdated by the time you release the program. Just yesterday a guy showed me his new mobile phone, it had mp3, 3 Mpixel digital cam also with mpeg4 (live video and camcorder), loud speakers, USB, etc.. It was like a super small version of a laptop, call it a "handtop" :) -S. >Tord
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