Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Glaurung CCT8

Author: Ryan B.

Date: 15:39:23 02/27/06

Go up one level in this thread


On February 27, 2006 at 18:12:36, Tord Romstad wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>The source code for GlaurungCCT8 can now be downloaded from my site:
>
>http://www.glaurungchess.com
>
>Binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X will be added in the next few
>days. This is almost the exact version which played in the CCT, except
>that a tiny quiescence bug has been fixed, and that the program finally
>sends information about hash usage to the GUI. It's funny, Glaurung has
>been available for download for about one and a half year, and nobody
>ever complained about the missing hash usage information. Then,
>suddenly, two people complained during the same day.
>

I notice you also fixed the checks in qsearch limit issue from the last SMP
version.

>The changes compared to Glaurung 1.0.2 are rather unexciting, unless
>you happen to have a computer with more than one CPU:
>
>
>* Parallel search has been added, using the technique known as the
>  "Young Brothers Wait Concept" (or at least something very similar).
>  This is limited to two CPUs so far, support for bigger numbers of
>  CPUs will be added in a later version. Of course the current version
>  will also work on a computer with more than two CPUs, but no more
>  than two will be used.
>
>* Several minor bugs which were found during implementation of the
>  parallel search have been fixed. Nothing big, and not likely to have
>  any influence on playing strength.
>
>* Several new bugs were without doubt added during implementation
>  of the parallel search. I hope these also don't have any big influence
>  on the playing strength, but before I find them I cannot know.
>
>Please note that this version almost requires at least two CPUs
>(or a single dual-core CPU). It will be ridiculously slow with the
>default settings. If you reduce the "Number of threads" UCI parameter
>to 1, it will work reasonably well on a single-CPU computer, but it will
>still be a bit slower and probably weaker than Glaurung 1.0.2. In other
>words, those of you without a dual shouldn't upgrade, but rather wait
>for the next Glaurung version.
>
>I have two goals with this version: The first is to show that parallel
>search is nowhere near as difficult to do than most people seem to
>believe, and that YBWC isn't necessarily harder than ABDADA and other
>shared hash table algorithms. I hope we will see many new parallel
>engines in the next few months, and that my source code will make
>the job a bit easier for some of the programmers.
>

I believed the hash sharing myth.  Seeing your code has already helped me.  I am
confident may others will be helped by your code in same way.  Thanks, Tord.

>The second goal is to try to put an end to the awful naming
>convention of adding "Deep" in front of the name for parallel versions
>of chess engines. I wish people would either leave the engine name
>unchanged (like Crafty, Diep, Zappa and Scorpio, among others), add
>a simple "SMP" at the end, or do something more creative ("ParSOS" is
>a fabulous name!). The "Deep" prefix is embarassingly silly, especially
>for those of us who have been around long enough to remember how it
>all started.
>
>Tord

A family member of mine once asked me if I know anything about the PC version of
Deep Blue, you know the Junior one...

Thanks,
Ryan



This page took 0.01 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.