Author: KarinsDad
Date: 14:26:23 04/16/99
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On April 15, 1999 at 10:55:10, Steve Coladonato wrote: >I have noticed that many computer chess tournaments are run on differing CPU's. >I don't understand how the results of ProgramX runnning on a P200 against >ProgramY running on a P90 are meaningful. I think the hardware environment >affects the results quite substantially. For example, given Fritz5 running on a >486 66mz and Fritz5 running on a Pentium 450, I would think that a game analysis >done on the Pentium 450 at 30 seconds per move would be more thorough than a >game analysis done on the 486 at 3 minutes per move. > >Am I way off here? There is one thing you are not considering. When you run ProgramX on a P200 vs. ProgramY on a P90 where ProgramY on the P90 has a large history of games (and therefore an approximate rating), then the rating of the second program can be considered to be "established". Hence, if you run many games of ProgramX on a P200 vs. ProgramY on a P90 (and you do this in a tournament mode such as the SSDF against multiple rating established programs/configurations), you can make a fairly good guess as to the rating of ProgramX on a P200. Knowing what this rating approximately is can also give you an idea of what ProgramX on a P90 or some other set of hardware may be (although this is more speculative, but at least you can get into the ballpark). The bottom line of this is not to compare two different programs, but rather to compare two different programs/ configurations. Also, if you make adjustments for the nodes per second between two pieces of hardware (if one set of NPS is 4.5 times the other, you can increase the time for the other system to 4.5 times as much to compensate), you should usually get similar results with the same program (although this too is dependent on several factors as well such as how a program handles time managemenet which may invalidate the results). KarinsDad :)
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