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Subject: Re: So why *does* Fritz beat Crafty?

Author: blass uri

Date: 10:48:02 03/28/99

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On March 28, 1999 at 09:15:11, James T. Walker wrote:

>On March 27, 1999 at 15:43:42, Eugene Nalimov wrote:
>
>>On March 27, 1999 at 12:45:05, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>On March 27, 1999 at 03:55:25, blass uri wrote:
>>>
>>>>It is not fair because part of the effort in doing the program crafty is by
>>>>doing it a parallel machine.
>>>>I believe that Bob could do in the same time a better program if he did not
>>>>waste time for doing a SMP program.
>>>
>>>If someone wants to compare Crafty and Fritz I think it would be fair to compare
>>>them on uniform high-end (single-processor) hardware, since they are both
>>>designed to work on that hardware.
>>>
>>>If one of them would only run on a 286, I don't think it would be fair to make
>>>them both run on a 286.
>>>
>>>But multiprocessor machines are still a super- high-end thing so it's probably
>>>not fair to say:  Here is the machine, it has 4 processors, feel free to use
>>>them in this match.  Oh, what did you say Fritz, you can't use 4 processors, you
>>>can only use one?  Well, that's too bad for you.  You might as well put them
>>>both on an Alpha and expect Fritz to use an emulator.
>>>
>>>In a few years, maybe, because everyone will have a multiprocessor machine, but
>>>of course everyone will be multiprocessor then.
>>>
>>>Bob's put time in being SMP, sure, but I think he supports single-processor
>>>machines and runs well on them.
>>>
>>>bruce
>>
>>Bob spent his time working on SMP. Also, he deliberatly lost some
>>performance by using C instead of assembly.
>>
>>Author of Fritz decided not to include SMP code, as well as write
>>his program on assembly to squize last pieces of performance.
>>
>>By using single-CPU x86-compatible machine you favor Fritz - he will
>>be running on the best possible platform.
>>
>>Maybe it's better to put some dollar limit - e.g. "on a machines
>>that cost not more than $7,500".
>>
>>Eugene
>
>Maybe it's better to say "For the average user".  The average person does not
>have a $7500 machine.  For the average user ($2000 PC or less) Crafty comes up
>way short of Fritz and Junior and the other top programs made for PC's.  So for
>comparable speed machines, Crafty gets beat more often than not.  If you want to
>put Crafty on a 4 processor machine  which increases it's speed by a factor of
>say 3.5 then give Fritz a comparable speed increase and it will still come out
>on top.  This is not a put down of Crafty.  I have often wondered the same thing
>about why Crafty gets beat by the top programs when Crafty seems to have all the
>modern techniques of chess programming.

Crafty does not have all the modern techniques of chess programming.

Crafty does not use the half ply search for some important moves like Junior

Fritz is using selective search and probably does some everage between the
selective search score and the brute force score.

Crafty does not do this.

It is not a surprise that Top programs are better than crafty because the source
code of crafty is free and can help other programmers when the source code of
top programs is not free.

Uri



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