Author: Christopher R. Dorr
Date: 13:09:54 03/30/99
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On March 30, 1999 at 13:57:39, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >On March 29, 1999 at 13:33:20, Christopher R. Dorr wrote: > >>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. > >This is like saying that one baseball player is better than another one, because >the one kills the other by hitting him in the head with his bat. > >Mofongo has a rating point maximizing formula. It only plays zero increment. >He also plays computers under his terms only. > >Assuming he's been using that 450 for a while, mine has a winning record against >him on weaker hardware. > >If have him noplay'd typically because I've had difficulties with that operator, >who also has a zillion other accounts. > >If you claim that Crafty is stronger than Ferret on equal hardware in head to >head games, certainly in 5 0 blitz, you haven't been paying attention. Sorry, >but that's true, and there is a tremendous amount of evidence to back that up. > I'm not necessarily saying that. How do you measure superiority, though? This isn't as arcane as it seems. I have a 2150 rated friend who has a *big* negative record against some local 1900. Looking at head-to-head, you'd say the 1900 was the superior player. Looking at their ratings, you would say that the 2150 was the superior player. What are we talking about here? >Please note that my claim in the previous paragraph is quite limited, I'm not >trying to pound my chest here. > >>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. > >No way. I argue against this on two grounds: > >1) Crafty has not been crippled by its port to SMP, at least not to my >knowledge. It should run just fine on one processor. At very least the SMP >part can be compiled out. SMP is an additional thing, not a transforming thing. > And Fritz should run just fine on that Quad Xeon. Is it Bob's fault that Frans didn't do any SMP stuff? Multiprocessors aren't as rare as you might think anymore. Certainly not more rare right now that the new PIII stuff. On equal hardware, I don't know. What hardware. How about my old 486/66 w/ 4 MB RAM? Bet you Crafty will run on it. Fritz5? Doubt it. Lots of people still have these around. Where do we target? The lowest common denominator? the highest? Perhaps an appropriate way to look at this would be a scale of equipment, that reflects the fact the Crafty is probably better than Fritz on very low-end and very high-end stuff, and Fritz is better in the middle. >2) Portability is a fine thing, and for those of you who happen to own Crays or >16-processor Alphas, I'm sure that Crafty is extremely strong, and there is a >good chance that it would whack Fritz badly. But we have to go with sensible >hardware here if we are talking about software comparisons that pertain to the >general category of user. Multiprocessor machines are weird now. It's great >that Crafty can use them, it's one of the very cool things about Crafty, but it >would not be fair to refuse to test Crafty on anything else, and it would not be >fair to put Crafty's opponent on arcane hardware it can't take advantage of, if >you are trying to compare software. > >>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. > >Personally I don't know. I have seen Crafty beat everything. My level of fear >when playing against it at the Jakarta WMCCC was pretty high. It can be very >enterprising. I don't know how it stacks up against the commercial programs, >but personally I would fear some of them a little more. > >bruce Again, I'm not saying that the premise *isn't* correct, but that there is conflicting data, and that the boundaries and definitions or the argument haven't been defined clearly enough to answer the question. It may sound pedantic, but if we don't set the ground rules, the conclusions are meaningless. Chris
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