Author: Gregor Overney
Date: 12:53:39 05/27/99
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On May 27, 1999 at 01:50:09, Prakash Das wrote: >Reading this board (on an occasional basis) that Rebel will be using the fastest > PC available, I hopped over to the rebel site, and see Ed's site boasting of >using a Kyrotech. > > It occurred to me whether the various programs will be competing on their own >chosen hardware? Thus, one participant would bring a fast computer while another >will be using something else. This will surely hurt the guy on the slower >computer. > > Shouldn't an event like wmcc be held on even hardware for all? Otherwise, >what's the meaning of these results. Considering that the result will be used >heavily for marketing purposes, etc. > > On another note, for a user like me, it doesn't matter if Rebel (just an >example), finishes first using the fastest PC.. I never use the fastest >processor, so the results are bit meaningless for me as user. What's the point >of using the fastest processor etc, for the majority of end users? > > Even some older programs would do well, given the best hardware around. (I hope >Rebel is not going to loudly use it's results for marketing. It already showed >in the GM game it has big holes in positional understanding.) It always depends on what people want to prove at such a competition. Assume someone ported Crafty 16.6 to a cluster of 16 PA-RISC 8500/360 and wins at this competition. Would this be considered an achievement to computer chess that is relevant? Although this task is not trivial, it would not. Crafty is Crafty. But if someone designs a chess program specifically using 16 PA-RISC CPU's and wins, (and it is _not_ a Crafty clone) then it is certainly an achievement. But it would be good, if there are some upper limits to what is permitted at such a competition (E.g. not more than 4 processors, all must be micros, all must be systems that are "of-the-shelve" units so that other people can buy them, or at least a very similar system). With other words, if you would show up with a four processors, XEON 550 (2 MBytes of L2 per CPU), and 2 GBytes of RAM, everything is perfect. It's a micro that you can buy "of-the-shelve". However, if you show up with a cluster of 64 SHARC DSP's mounted to a "home-made" board with some customized FPGAs then you should not be allowed to participate. Therefore, the organizers of such a competition could apply similar rules than SPEC applies before they publish specint's and specfp's for computer systems. Gregor
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