Author: Torstein Hall
Date: 04:32:36 05/28/05
Go up one level in this thread
On May 28, 2005 at 02:09:30, Keith Evans wrote: >On May 27, 2005 at 18:16:18, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: > >>On May 27, 2005 at 13:50:53, Uri Blass wrote: >> >>>On May 27, 2005 at 11:54:03, Torstein Hall wrote: >>> >>>>On May 27, 2005 at 08:45:58, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >>>> >>>>>On May 26, 2005 at 16:29:46, Joshua Shriver wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>Interesting... so how many of the 32 cpu's are CPU vs FPGA custom chips? >>>>> >>>>>It has 32 custom FPGA cards. >>>>> >>>>>>Have there been any stats as to nps on each fpga, and what kind of bus does it >>>>> >>>>>You are interested in objectivity, the hydra team is a very bad person to ask in >>>>>that case. They are interested in blowing it up to unheard dimensions. >>>>> >>>>>>rest on? I thought the FPGA's where attached on a PCI backplane, and if they're >>>>>>working with that many, have they come across any latency problems over the PCI >>>>>>bus. >>>>> >>>>>That's why they do not have hashtables inside the fpga cards. >>>>> >>>>>>Hydra intrigues me, since parallel programming is what inspired me to want to do >>>>>>an engine. (Besides also loving the game) >>>>> >>>>>Their parallel algorithm isn't worth much in the real world i guess. I don't >>>>>give a penny for their parallel efforts. If they would have a good parallel >>>>>algorithm, hydra would already run at 1024 cpu's by now for sure. >>>>> >>>>>Also the way it gets shown to the world is kind of the usual way. >>>>> >>>>>First dumb down 1 cpu a lot by not using hashtable last 6 ply, then show a good >>>>>speedup of a lobotomized 1 cpu versus 32. >>>>> >>>>>We know that drill from the past already. >>>>> >>>>>Like cilkchess (MiT), a fast bitboard engine, getting just like 2500-5000 nodes >>>>>a second at a single cpu at 512 cpu's 500Mhz, and diep a program 20 times >>>>>faster, gets at the same hardware at 512 cpu's 10000-20000 nodes a second a cpu. >>>>> >>>>>I mean, cilkchess team can claim whatever speedup they have, but without cilk >>>>>their program at 1 such cpu gets 200000 nodes a second, as it's a simplistic >>>>>bitboards engine with near to no eval (crafty has 4 times more knowledge in eval >>>>>than cilkchess in fact). So from my viewpoint they are missing a factor 40+ >>>>>somewhere in the compare to the single cpu. >>>>> >>>>>See the problem of the parallel speedup of Hydra? >>>>> >>>>>They can brag whatever about speedup, as long as they aren't comparing an >>>>>optimized single cpu version with the 32 processor version, it's not a very fair >>>>>compare. >>>>> >>>>>You can get a million nodes, but if all what you do with it is search 6 ply in a >>>>>highly selective manner, that still is 6 thin plies. >>>>> >>>>>It isn't 7 ply which i get with perhaps at most 100000 nodes, without any >>>>>forward pruning (just nullmove). Then we didn't discuss the huge evaluation >>>>>difference even. >>>>> >>>>>Rudolf Huber (SOS) calls that: "they first slow it down, or make the branching >>>>>factor horrible, in order to be able to claim a better speedup". >>>>> >>>>>>-Josh >>>> >>>>What kind of interest has the Hydra team of doing that? Anyway, the fact >>>>remains, it blows all PC programs, including Diep, of the board! >>>>Simple or complicated paralell search, null move etc. etc. who cares as long as >>>>it is the strongest chess machine on the planet! >>>> >>>>Torstein >>> >>>No proof for it. >>>It is only an opinion. >>> >>>I believe that Shredder is stronger than Hydra and Shredder was unlucky to >>>suffer from a bug so the version that played hydra was weaker than the >>>commercial version. >>> >>>Uri I have seen Shredder on the playchess server against what is supposed to be Hydra. It looked like Shredder managed to draw when it came out of book in a clearly supperior position. Else it all looked like Hydra had the command most of the time. No proof, but enough for me! :-) >> >>First of all Diep is a chessprogram, not a chessmachine. So no matter what >>happens hydra will probably always remain the strongest chessmachine. Any claim >>in that direction the answer is always: "yes it is". >> >>I feel first half of 2005, Hydra really was strong. >> >>Yet let's be honest, i didn't prepare anything for diep for paderborn2005. I >>didn't prepare anything for ict5 either. It will be disaster perhaps. >> >>But i'm changing it. Changes are needed to bigtime improve a product. After the >>changes are fixed it's strong once again. >> >>Same thing for shredder and all other software products. >> >>Hydra however will play 100% as strong as it plays now the next year, but it >>hardly will improve. Hardware is just too difficult to improve in that respect. You could always buy better hardware if your funds are "unlimited". >> >>Probably by august 2005, many are again better than Hydra. >> >>The only way to prove that is by playing world champs each year. I understand >>why a country in war with Israel doesn't show up at world champs in that >>country. >> >>But if it doesn't show up at Reykjavik 2005, that will be only because the team >>fears to lose there. It needs a sheik to order them to play a world champs. At >>the same time such a sheik gets real real utmost furious when not finishing >>first there, demanding heads roll (if not litterary). So i clearly realize the >>consequences for the team if they WOULD join and not win the title. However if >>they would have a reasonable good chance to win there, they sure join. >> >>I feel in 2005 they do make a chance to win. >> >>Therefore if that order doesn't come from sheik, all computerchess experts >>should realize that whatever their odds to win in 2005, for sure by end of 2005, >>Hydra will be surpassed by software. >> >>Chrilly showed a succesful trick (agressive kingsafety tuning). Shredder and >>Diep didn't have that yet. For sure Shredder will recover from that. Fritz and >>Junior already had that trick, but especially fritz lacks massive amounts of >>chessknowledge. Junior is a bit underestimated in that respect, despite having a >>bunch of world titles. I feel it is a bit unfair of you to say Hydras success is only some kind of king attack tuning trick. In my view, a program, or a human player that searches deeper and more exact will always have a large advantage in chess. And that is what Hydra is doing. The chess machine hardware simply has no match in the world of general purpose machines at the moment. >> >>The path of hydra, putting a program in hardware already means it's extreme >>difficult to improve more than with 1 byte a week. >> >>It's already hard enough to improve software... ...and they need days to just >>compile a copy of hydra and put it into action. >> >>Apart from software being ready for a world champ, software has another >>advantage that most here might not realize at such a world champ. >>You always can get good hardware for it. >> >>Those development FPGA cards that are inside now, i mean what are they clocked. >>60Mhz or so? State of the art. But in 2010 it'll still run at 60Mhz. >> >>How about software, with processors like cell processor and multicore coming? >>Perhaps not cell itself is ideal for chess, but the technology idea (with branch >>prediction) sure takes care that normal processors will get released in >>multicore too. They'll have to compete with it, or all 'cheap' clusters in >>highend will be replaced by cells. >> >>Vincent > >He now has PowerPC cores inside each FPGA, so he may be able to take advantage >of that in the future. See the article in the Xilinx XCell journal if you want >to confirm. I guess that it's a delicate balancing act, so it may not make any >sense to spend time on the PowerPC development. But given how large the FPGAs >are now, he may wish to put more cores on each FPGA and manage them with a >PowerPC. You could easily spend a few hundred thousand upgrading the FPGA >boards. Maybe that explains that spike in oil prices ;-) The spike in the oil prices is simply a function of the drinking habbits of the oil producing nations. I have changed into more expencive wines recently.... Torstein > >I hope that Chrilly is having some fun! > >-Keith
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