Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 18:47:17 05/31/99
Go up one level in this thread
On May 31, 1999 at 20:50:59, Melvin S. Schwartz wrote:
[snip]
>It has been my experience with other people having the same software that with
>faster pc's you will get better results from a program. And that means the
>program will play better. It is printed in the manual for Hiarcs 7 in reference
>to improving Hiarcs strength: "Alternatively, you can purchase a faster PC!" It
>is also stated in the manual for Fritz 5.32 that the speed of the software the
>program is running on has a great influence on the playing strength of Fritz. It
>also states "Obviously a 200 MHz Pentium is going to give you a much better
>performance than one running at 133 MHZ. There are other factors as well, but as
>you can see, the hardware a program is running on is very important. And that is
>why I criticized SSDF for running Hiarcs 6 on a P90 against Nimzo 98 on a P200.
>Of course they claim that they are able to compensate for the different speed
>and come up with accurate calculations; however, I am not totally convinced of
>that. I still feel they're dealing in a hypothehtical situation. At Shep's site
>there are tournaments held where all programs are run against each other on the
>same hardware. That I believe is the absolute correct way to evaluate programs.
You are wrong. Simple as that. The strongest, fastest, most secure and
complete way to determine the strength of an opponent is to play against an
opponent of known strength. The exactness of the measure of the known
opponent's strength bears a direct relationship to the quality of the estimate
derived from the contest. If I have a program of strength 2300 for which I have
one thousand games played, a program of strength 2500 for which I have fifty
games played, and a 2600 program for which I have 5 games played, I will learn
much more mathematically by playing against the 2300 ELO program simply because
of the greater certainty of the measurements. Your criticism is not correct.
However, you should not feel badly that your intution is wrong. The SSDF gets
criticized for this very thing at least once a month. Mathematically speaking,
the SSDF is very correct and rigorous in their procedures. They even present
the mathematical certainty along with the normal estimate.
There is another point which you could bring up that I feel is far more valid.
People would be more interested in games against equal opponents (despite the
fact that they may be much less interesting from a mathematical standpoint).
However, the SSDF runs on volunteer machines. They do not necessarily have the
option of playing program x verses program y on PIII 500MHz machines.
The solution, obviously, is to run your own tournaments and record the results
for the pleasure of all {except for those companies who are terrified that they
might get clobbered and have forbidden publication of contest results for that
reason}.
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