Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 17:49:31 09/06/05
Go up one level in this thread
On September 04, 2005 at 17:39:28, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>There, I said it.
>
>I can't believe what I'm reading in the "Zappa retail no UCI whine whine"
>thread. 95% of the people posting in that thread are or have always been happily
>using Junior, Fritz, Hiarcs, Nimzo and ChessTiger versions which only run under
>1 interface.
>
>The ChessBase interface has historically always had SEVERE bugs in UCI and/or
>WinBoard support which coincidencially always handicapped the external engines.
>Yes, some of the most visible bugs have been fixed, but the interface still has
>many left[1] and I am sure other ones will 'accidentally' be introduced again in
>the future.
>
>You are really asking all engine authors to BEND OVER for their competitor, so
>THEY have to work around the bugs of ChessBase and, if they are very lucky, then
>perhaps be able to play some games without too much handicap (book, learning) in
>the competitors GUI.
I am not sure that I understand the link between UCI and ChessBase expressed
here.
>Don't give me any crap about Arena or Shredder, I know 95% of you is really
>using Fritz so you can test against CB engines. I can easily tell from the
>support questions.
I have bought:
Hiarcs 9
Junior 8
Fritz 8
Shredder 7 CB
But I have not played any of them in 6 months or more.
The same goes for ChessGenius 8.5.
The same goes for Rebel DOS.
I have Shredder UCI which is played several times a week.
I play Chess Tiger mostly under ChessAssistant, which is my database of choice.
I play DeepSjeng, Gandalf, Ruffian, Rebel (Winboard version) regularly (last
time was 250 games over the 3 day labor day weekend).
>I asked Vincent and he confirmed that his GUI *does* support UCI correctly, so
>you can still play your beloved UCI engines against Zappa *in it's own GUI*.
I prefer ChessAssistant and Arena most of the time. Once in a while I play
Shredder 9 UCI in its own GUI, but not very often.
>What, not happy because you can't test Fritz against Zappa easily? Well, tough
>luck. Why did you buy Fritz or Junior anyway as it has NEVER supported playing
>in anything else than it's native interface? And now you are complaining about
>Zappa? Can you spell "HYPOCRITE"?
Sure. But I might transpose letters. It's a dyslexic thing.
>
>At least this way we can perhaps get some INNOVATION and NEW FEATURES inside a
>GUI. I have been here long enough that I remember the time when there was really
>competition in that area, and a new release brought something special, something
>new in terms of features. This is GONE with the hegemony of ChessBase GUI's and
>it CANNOT be restored if one sells engines just so they can run under Yet
>Another Buggy ChessBase GUI.
I will probably buy Vincent's product, with Anthony's engine as well. I would
like it a lot better if both engines were UCI engines.
>
>I am very curious to see Zappa be released commercially and will certainly buy
>it not only for the engine, but also to see what FEATURES the GUI can offer.
I'm not too excited about the GUI features. And the 3-d crapola will be the
first thing I disable (I hate every 3-d gui I have ever seen with a flaming,
plasma-hot passion, and I expect to hate Vincent's 3-D gui as well, but I might
be surprised).
I like Arena for doing contests, though sometimes I use an outside manager for
it. Hopefully Vincent's GUI will have some nice contest features. I would like
to be able to process EPD records as input and write the results to EPD records
as output. I use Shredder 9 in its native GUI or ChessAssistant for that now.
>It's already very said that computer chess has been damaged so much by the
>hegemony of one vendor and now you, users, are ASKING for it to be continued.
I do not see how the UCI request has any bearing on that.
>Are you really so blind, so shortsighted, and so DUMB that you cannot see that
>another interface also offers many ADVANTAGES?
It might. But I want UCI or Winboard access too. I don't think any single
person has asked for a ChessBase interface to Diep or Zappa. Did I miss those
requests?
>So please, all the !#%&(%* that are saying they won't buy Zappa if it doesn't do
>UCI: go buy Fritz 9 and enoy your HUMAN-OPTIMIZED ALL NEW IMPROVED MORE
>KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE CRASHES ONLY EVERY 5 MINUTES CHESSPROGRAM THAT DOESNT
>SUPPORT UCI ANYWAY!
This statement makes no sense to me at all. Doesn't it seem self-contradictory
to you? If I wanted CB access, I would ask for a CB interface. If I wanted
Winboard or UCI access, that would be so that I could use it in things like
SCID, ChessAssistant, Arena, Winboard, Jose, etc.
>Meanwhile, sane people can enjoy a game against the WORLD CHAMPION in a new GUI
>that I am very curious to see.
I will probably buy it. But the GUI is not exciting to me in the least.
Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised and it will do all sorts of things I
cannot do right now or it will do them better. But I am expecting it will paint
a hideous 3-d glop over some excellent chess engines and after a few registry
edits or something I will be able to tone it down to the point where I can get
an interface nearly as excellent as Winboard.
Did I mention that I hate every 3-d chess interface with a passion hotter than a
thermonuclear explosion?
I hate the Shredder 3-d interface
I hate the ChessMaster 3-d interface
I hate the ChessGenius 3-d interface
I hate the ChessBase 3-d interface
I hate the ChessAssistant 3-d interface
I hate the Jose 3-d interface
I don't even like the 3-d interface in real life. I would much prefer a nice,
flat, 2-d Winboard style interface.
Now, for innovation, I would like to see GUI ideas like we see in Wilhelm
(really fascinating ideas for endgame analysis). And I would like to see ideas
like the CDB {Peter Klausler} interface that used little arrows to show all the
possible chess moves. And other things that are genuinely useful to me.
Ray traced, chromium-polished 3-d chessmen with reflections of a teapot in them?
BARF!!
BARF!!
BARF!!
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