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Subject: Re: Chessmaster 9000 for Macintosh has been released.

Author: William Bryant

Date: 06:35:10 01/01/05

Go up one level in this thread


On December 31, 2004 at 23:42:59, Richard A. Fowell wrote:

>On December 31, 2004 at 10:58:33, Roy Eassa wrote:
>
>>On December 30, 2004 at 03:35:13, Richard A. Fowell wrote:
>>
>>>My copy of Chessmaster 9000 for Macintosh showed up today ( I had pre-ordered it
>>>through Amazon.com in the spring). It comes on DVD-ROM (and will not launch
>>>without the DVD-ROM in the drive) and requires OS 10.2 as a minimum.
>>>
>>>Compared to Chessmaster 6000 Mac, the new version:
>>>
>>>- Runs native in OS X
>>>- Has "The King 3.23" (7/7/2002) engine
>>>- Apparently has endgame tablebases (though I have yet to get it to use them).
>>>
>>>Probably a few other things too.
>>>
>>>-Richard
>>
>>
>>Please let us know how strong it plays, approximately, compared to other Mac
>>programs and to Windows programs on similar-speed hardware.
>
>My guess is:
>
>- Chessmaster 9000 is weaker than the imminent HIARCS 9.6 for Mac
>   release, but significantly stronger than any other Mac chess engine.
>
>- On similar Windows hardware, several Windows programs are significantly
>stronger
>   than CM9000 - up to 90 points, in the case of Shredder.
>
>My reasoning:
>
>It is notoriously difficult to measure the strength of chess programs accurately
>without
>playing a lot of games between them (which I don't plan on).
>
>I'm basing my  my guess based on this month's SSDF rating list.
>Here are the 11 "non-sibling" engines on this months SSDF rating list:
>
>      THE SSDF RATING LIST 2004-12-31    100049 games played by  267 computers
>                                            Rating   +     -  Games   Won  Oppo
>                                            ------  ---   --- -----   ---  ----
>1 Shredder 8.0 CB  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz  2805   23   -22  1075   71%  2645
>2 Deep Fritz 8.0  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz   2791   25   -24   896   72%  2628
>3 Junior 8.0  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz       2772   25   -24   832   66%  2656
>4 Gandalf 6.0  256MB  Athlon 1200 MHz     2749   49   -46   225   63%  2658
>5 Hiarcs 9.0  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz       2739   22   -21  1068   62%  2656
>6 Chess Tiger 2004  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz 2723   27   -26   710   59%  2657
>7 Chessmaster 9000  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz 2717   36   -36   376   55%  2679
>8 Rebel 12.0  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz       2684   32   -32   484   57%  2633
>9 Ruffian 1.0.1  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz    2675   27   -27   684   52%  2657
>10 Deep Sjeng 1.5a  256MB Athlon 1200 MH   2673   31   -31   493   52%  2662
>11 Crafty 18.12/CB 256MB  Athlon 1200 MHz 2617   27   -27   687   50%  2617
>
>Of these 11 engines, four are now (or will soon be) available on the Macintosh:
>
>5 Hiarcs 9.0  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz       2739   22   -21  1068   62%  2656
>7 Chessmaster 9000  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz 2717   36   -36   376   55%  2679
>9 Ruffian 1.0.1  256MB Athlon 1200 MHz    2675   27   -27   684   52%  2657
>11 Crafty 18.12/CB 256MB  Athlon 1200 MHz 2617   27   -27   687   50%  2617
>
>Two questions about using these results to predict performance on the Macintosh:
>- how similar is the chess engine source code between the Mac and Windows
>versions?
>- how efficiently does the chess engine object code run on Intel vs. PowerPC
>CPUs?
>
>In the past, I've probed at these questions by running a problem test like the
>LCT-II test
>on both platforms. If the results are the same, but the timing is different, I
>conclude
>that the engines are probably the same, but the CPU efficiency is different.
>
>With respect to the level of similarity:
>
>HIARCS: I would think HIARCS 9.6 is likely to be somewhat stronger than HIARCS
>9.0 on Windows:
>- HIARCS 9.6 Macintosh is presumably believed stronger than the earlier version
>of HIARCS 9.0
>- In the past, the chess engine source code for HIARCS has been identical
>between Mac and Windows
>- In the (quite distant) past, older HIARCS engines had better nps/MHz speed on
>PowerPC than Intel
>
>(http://web.archive.org/web/20001118051800/http://gambitsoft.com/chess/games/hiar6me.htm)
>
>Chessmaster 9000
>- Both Chessmaster 9000 for PC and for Mac use the "The King 3.23" engine.
>- I have no benchmarks comparing "The King's" CPU efficiency between Intel and
>Mac.
>
>Ruffian
>- The Mac OS/X Version is 2.02, so it may be better than version 1.01 above
>- I have no benchmarks comparing Ruffian's CPU efficiency between Intel and Mac.
>
>Crafty
>- I think (though I don't have it) Crafty 18.12 has been compiled for the Mac
>- CPU benchmarks have indicated Crafty does better on Intel vs. PowerPC CPUs.
>   In particular, the spec2000 benchmark 186.crafty runs 30% faster per MHz on
>  a 2600 MHz AMD Athlon vs. a 2200  MHz PowerPC 970.
>
>-Richard

Richard,

I will be glad to send you a binary of Crafty 19.17 optomized for the 970.
I can get 3M NPS when run of a duel platform.
I runs as a UNIX process (from the terminal).

Let me know if you would like me to eMail ti to you.

William



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