Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 14:05:11 07/13/04
Go up one level in this thread
On July 13, 2004 at 16:41:49, Uri Blass wrote: >On July 13, 2004 at 15:37:32, Amir Ban wrote: > >>On July 13, 2004 at 13:11:35, Jorge Pichard wrote: >> >>>On July 13, 2004 at 11:55:35, Omid David Tabibi wrote: >>> >>>>On July 13, 2004 at 11:23:29, Eydun Lamhauge wrote: >>>> >>>>>How strong is Ruffian compared to the engines that participated in WCCC 2004? >>>>>Would Ruffian have made a top three position? >>>> >>>>No. Top 5 positions were already taken by those running on quad opterons. >>>>Assuming Ruffian would have participated with a non-parallel version, it would >>>>have reached the 6th place at best. >>> >>> >>>To avoid any further disadvantage for the single processor programs, I recommend >>>two group of winners for next year! >>> >>> >>>Trophies for the SMP programs And for the single processor programs >>> First group Second group >>> >>> 1st Deep Junior 1st Jonny >>> 2nd Shredder 2nd Falcon >>> 3rd Diep 3rd IsiChess >>> >> >>While you are at it, why not restrict search to 8 plies ? That would eliminate >>the disadvantage to FIBChess, for example. >> >>Amir > >Not enough. > >Unfortunately even 8 plies are enough to beat FIBchess easily. >That program is simply not competitive. > >There is also a clear difference between the suggestions and you know it. > >single processor winner is at least winner in something with practical meaning >for people(not everybody is using more than one cpu). > >The problem with the suggestion is that deciding about a single processor winner >in WCCC prevents you to play for both titles so if there is a competition for >best single processor it should be in different time than WCCC >and practically there is a competition for best single processor (it is called >ssdf) and I believe that the ssdf will have no problem to test Jonny or Falcon >if the programmers ask them to do it. I think that all of the top programs will resist a uniform platform event. They have worked very hard to write SMP programs, and that gives them a huge advantage. What will motivate them to surrender their advantage? For sure, if I were them, I would kick and scream and drag my feet and refuse to change the platform, because it is to their advantage to do so. The choice for the amateur is obvious: Write a threaded version of your program. It's not that hard. Take a look at Amy's source code, as it is the easiest to understand of the two open source SMP programs. I don't think you will ever see another uniform platform event. Who does it serve? The amateurs only. The hardware vendors want to sell their top of the line machines. If they have some 8 CPU whomper, that wins the contest, they can sell it as "the hardware that won the computer chess world championship" but if every machine is the exact same machine, there is no way to claim any sort of superiority. Therefore, they will have little motivation to offer nifty-keen machines for usage. Similarly, the commercial chess programs have taken a clue from crafty, realizing that they would get their brains beat in if they did not write threading programs. The result of this year's contest clearly shows that the approach was sound. Had all the programs except for Crafty and Diep been single threading, I think you would have seen a far different result (of course, then the commercial chess vendors would have been far more amenable to uniform platform -- wink, wink). Multiple CPUs is a very logical step for increased horsepower without stupendous engineering advances. At some point in the near future, it will be far simpler to add more CPUs than to increase clock rate (actually, we are already there IMO).
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