Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: zobrist key table questions

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 04:25:09 05/30/04

Go up one level in this thread


On May 30, 2004 at 07:11:11, Tord Romstad wrote:

>On May 30, 2004 at 06:44:55, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>I have the following function to initialize my random numbers
>>
>>typedef unsigned __int64 BitBoard;
>>
>>BitBoard rand64()
>>{
>>  __int64 r = rand();
>>  r ^= (__int64)rand() << 15;
>>  r ^= (__int64)rand() << 30;
>>  r ^= (__int64)rand() << 45;
>>  r ^= (__int64)rand() << 60;
>>  return r;
>>}
>>
>>void initializezobarray()
>>{
>>	//starting zobrist keys
>>	char zobnum[128];
>>	int fil,i,j;
>>	srand(0);
>>	for (fil=0;fil<6;fil++)
>>		for (i=0;i<2;i++)
>>			for (j=0;j<64;j++)
>>				zobrist[fil][i][j]=rand64();
>>
>>
>>}
>>
>>My first question is if I can be sure that I will get the same random numbers in
>>every computer(I get the same in my computer but if I do not get the same in
>>every computer than I may consider to rewrite it because I plan to use hash keys
>>for my book and I do not want to have a problem that the program will not be
>>able to use my book in another computer).
>>
>>I also see that Crafty is using a table of random numbers from a book and does
>>not trust rand()
>
>If you use exactly the same executable on different computers, you will probably
>get the same random numbers every time.  But if you compile with a different
>compiler, you will almost certainly get different random numbers.  In other
>words,
>you will have to build your book again if you ever change your compiler.
>
>>My second question is if there is an advantage in doing it.
>
>Yes.  The rand() function gives very low-quality random numbers.

Based on what experience?

I am interested only in the chess question and not if the number are random.

How much speed improvement people can get by changing the random number from
something like I do to better quality random numbers?

I consider to copy all the numbers to a text file and give the user the
possibility to change them.

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.