Author: James T. Walker
Date: 05:22:12 03/30/99
Go up one level in this thread
On March 29, 1999 at 13:33:20, Christopher R. Dorr wrote: >I think it is important to look at several things here: > >1. I am not convinced that the best programs really *are* thet much better than >Crafty. In computer-computer tests, the others may well fare better, but in >playing humans, I think it may be a different story. I for one (A weak USCF >Master) honestly feel that Crafty is about as strong as Fritz5. I can't tell the >difference, perhaps because they are both so much better than me. And if they >are that much better than me, imaging how much stronger they *both* are to the >average player (c. USCF 1400-1500). To a 1500, there is *no* strength difference >between a 2500 and a 2550. > >2. Even on a single processor machine, Crafty is better than just about all the >other programs (and humans too) at speed, on ICC. Mofongo (A single processor >Crafty 16.6 running on normal, albeit somewhat high-end equipment) is currently >rated 3072 at blitz. This is higher than CM6000, Fritz 5.32, Ferret, etc. At >least at blitz, Crafty can make a very good claim for being as strong or >stronger than everything else in the world. > >3. Crafty is designed to be SMP. To say it's not fair to state that Crafty on a >Quad Xeon is better than Fritz on a single PIII is the same as saying that it's >not fair that Deep Blue runs on a specially designed computer. If the question >is what's the best, a very valid way of looking at is to measure their >performance on their optimal machine. Crafty's optimal machine is a Quad Xeon or >PIII, while Fritz's is a single PIII 500.On these optimal machines, I honestly >doubt Fritz's superiority. > >In short, I believe the premise of this thread is somewhat flawed. Crafty has >not (against humans) been demonstrated to be significantly weaker than anything >else, especially at speed. If this question is rephrased as "Why is Crafty >weaker than Fritz (or Rebel or whatever) at 40/2 on a single processor system >agains humans?" or "Why doesn't Crafty fare as well against computers as it's >anti-human blitz rating would suggest", I believe that we can answer these >questions. As the question is currently phrased, I don't think we can answer >this well. > >Chris Dorr Hello Chris, How can you be sure that Fritz is only a single processor program? Crafty is BOTH a single and a multiple. I can only compare the single to the single. My results are below. But if you look at the Chessbase/Germany site you see that Fritz has played on a Siemans Nixdorf Primergy 460 which is a dual PII 333 mhz machine with 256M per processor. They claim it filled 200-300 Meg of hash tables during each move. So somewhere there exist a multiprocessor Fritz. It may not be commercial yet but don't bet on it staying that way. My latest Blitz results: (Game/10) Program Fritz rating No. games played Gauged +129 1. Fritz 5.32 2471 183 2600 2. Junior 5.0 2420 223 2549 3. Nimzo 99 2354 261 2483 4. Crafty 16.6 2324 274 2453 5. Crafty 16.5 2291 277 2420 6. Comet B00 2238 344 2367 In the last 62 games Crafty 16.6 lost to Junior 34 to 28. This dropped Junior down and raised Crafty 16.6 up 33 points above the Crafty 16.5. I don't know if Crafty 16.6 is tuned better against Junior or it's just a fluke but more games will follow. Jim Walker
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