Author: Vasik Rajlich
Date: 06:08:12 12/06/05
Go up one level in this thread
On December 05, 2005 at 11:31:03, Gerd Isenberg wrote:
>On December 05, 2005 at 10:49:02, Vasik Rajlich wrote:
>
>>On December 05, 2005 at 10:18:43, Gerd Isenberg wrote:
>>
>>>On December 05, 2005 at 04:44:36, Vasik Rajlich wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hello,
>>>>
>>>>Well, I am shocked by the speed of the computer chess community. There are now
>>>>200 requests for Beta versions of Rybka in my mailbox. Many of you made
>>>>interesting comments and asked all sorts of questions, but at the moment I am
>>>>really short of time and can't give personal responses to everyone. Some of
>>>>these questions are answered here.
>>>>
>>>>The first piece of good news is that Rybka Beta 1.0 will be available for free
>>>>download until midnight tonight (Dec 5) on Leo's website. Obviously this targets
>>>>the more hardcore members of the computer chess community - there are so many
>>>>here who give their time and share their ideas that I would be embarassed to do
>>>>anything else.
>>>>
>>>>However, I am now working on this project full time, and much as I would like to
>>>>just concentrate on the technical aspect, the truth is that there is now a
>>>>business to run. The first commercial release will be as plain as can be - Rybka
>>>>1.0 standalone UCI engine, no GUI, no book, no copy protection, no engine
>>>>capability not currently specified in the UCI protocol. The price will be 34
>>>>Euro. The original target date was Dec 16, but thanks to the incredible speed of
>>>>the CEGT team this has been moved up to ASAP :) Additional announcements are
>>>>forthcoming.
>>>>
>>>>While I hope that there are some sales of Rybka 1.0, the main goal here is to
>>>>prepare for a summer 2006 release. If things go as I envision, we'll offer an
>>>>engine-GUI combo which brings Rybka's chess knowledge to the user and makes
>>>>chess players wonder how they ever survived without it. Of course, some software
>>>>developers will tell you that when plans meet reality it is usually reality
>>>>which wins .. but in my book reality is a seven point underdog :)
>>>>
>>>>If any of you are interested in helping the Rybka project succeed, the following
>>>>are all useful areas of contribution:
>>>>
>>>>1) Comments, feedback, and CPU time for beta versions.
>>>>2) Purchase the full version of Rybka 1.0.
>>>>3) Get Rybka, and computer chess in general, "out there" into the world of chess
>>>>- articles, clubs, into the general chess consciousness.
>>>>
>>>>This last point is for me the biggest. The computer chess community has
>>>>tremendous expertise and knowledge, and computer chess is interesting and fun.
>>>>As programmers, we struggle with the question of what chess knowledge really is
>>>>in a much deeper and more interesting way than chess players do. A chess player
>>>>will learn something obvious about positional play, and never really stop to
>>>>inspect it - because as a human, he doesn't need to. On the other hand, when
>>>>your program is constantly rebeling against everything you taught it, or plays
>>>>worse with those last few bits of what you thought were knowledge, you end up
>>>>asking much tougher questions. So - for those with the ability and interest,
>>>>let's get out there and spread the word.
>>>>
>>>>I am also looking for a few people who will collaborate more closely on the
>>>>project. There are the usual computer chess things (opening book, tournament
>>>>operation, beta testing). In addition, the main event of the next four to six
>>>>weeks will be the addition of I hope two more software developers to the Rybka
>>>>team. I have of course a target list from my days as a student and developer,
>>>>but if you are talented, and interested in the project, please don't hesitate to
>>>>get in touch with me and we can discuss it further.
>>>>
>>>>Happy testing, and best regards,
>>>>Vas
>>>
>>>
>>>Hi Vas,
>>>
>>>wow, what great news - seems your bitboard baby has passed some imaginary
>>>limits. While Fabien teached us smart search with steady evaluation, your
>>>approach implies thinking bitboards in knowledge based implementaion of
>>>evaluation as well as quiescence detection.
>>>
>>>Congratulations and a very big success with Rybka!
>>>
>>>Gerd
>>
>>Hi Gerd,
>>
>>to tell the truth, I don't think board representation is all that important. I
>>flipped a coin my first few weeks of computer chess programming, and it said
>>bitboards. :)
>
>hehe - i don't buy that, Vas ;-)
>
>I agree that board representation is not that important ...,
>but didn't you agree that "thinking bitboards" - aka using setwise expressions -
>isn't more suitable for a lot of pattern ;-)
>
>
>>
>>BTW: are there any tricks for speeding up bitboards on 32 bit systems. I go from
>>166 knps to 104. I was thinking to somehow take advantage of the knowledge that
>>sometimes, a bitboard truly is two half boards, but it never gave any speed up.
>>
>>I mean, instead of:
>>
>>for (bb knights = Board.pieces [WhiteKnight]; knights; knights &= 1)
>>{
>> unsigned long knight_sq;
>> _BitScanForward64 (knights, &knight_sq);
>> ...
>>}
>>
>>something like:
>>
>>for (unsigned int i=0; i<2; i ++)
>>{
>> for (unsigned int half_knights = (unsigned int *)(Board.pieces [WhiteKnight])
>>+ i; half_knights; half_knights &= 1)
>> {
>> unsigned long knight_sq;
>> _BitScanForward (half_knights, &knight_sq);
>> knight_sq += i * 32;
>> ...
>> }
>>}
>>
>>This was always slower. (I also tried unrolling it, I guess the loop body is too
>>big.)
>>
>>If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them ..
>
>While it might be possible to gain something while processing two half boards
>simultaniously, i favour one loop64 approach with some inlined bitscan64
>function, which might be conditionally compiled for 64-bit and 32-bit or
>"portable"-mode, e.g. with Matt Taylor's folded De Bruijn multiplication:
>
>// some haeder file
>#ifdef USE_X64_INTRINSICS
>// precondition: bb not null
>__forceinline
>unsigned int bitScan(bb b) {
> unsigned long sq;
> _BitScanForward64 (b, &sq);
> return sq;
>}
>#else
>extern const unsigned int lsz64_tbl[64];
>
>// precondition: bb not null
>// Matt Taylor's folded De Bruijn multiplication
>__forceinline
>unsigned int bitScan(bb b) {
> b ^= (b - 1);
> unsigned int fold = ((int) b) ^ ((int)(b>>32));
> return lsz64_tbl[(fold * 0x78291ACF) >> (32-6)];
>}
>#endif
>
>
>for (bb knights = Board.pieces [WhiteKnight]; knights; knights &= knights-1)
>{
> unsigned int knight_sq = bitScan(knights);
> ...
>}
>
>// in some c file
>#ifndef USE_X64_INTRINSICS
>const unsigned int CACHE_ALIGN lsz64_tbl[64] = {
> 63,30, 3,32,59,14,11,33,
> 60,24,50, 9,55,19,21,34,
> 61,29, 2,53,51,23,41,18,
> 56,28, 1,43,46,27, 0,35,
> 62,31,58, 4, 5,49,54, 6,
> 15,52,12,40, 7,42,45,16,
> 25,57,48,13,10,39, 8,44,
> 20,47,38,22,17,37,36,26,
>};
>#endif
>
>Gerd
>
Gerd,
thanks! If it's not too much trouble (and you visit this far down the page), can
you also post this algorithm for __BitScanReverse64 ()?
Also, I see in your pseudocode that the arguments to the native
_BitScanForward64 () intrinsic are reversed, which makes me curious: did you
type this code from memory? That's what I would call thinking in bitboards :)
Best regards,
Vas
>>
>>Vas
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