Author: Paul Richards
Date: 09:34:56 07/02/99
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On July 02, 1999 at 02:43:37, Peter Kappler wrote: >>I have both F5.32 and Hiarcs 7.32; I like them both; I do not know which >>one will ultimately score higher on SSDF; but those engine v engine results >>prove nothing. >> > >Prove nothing?? Absurd. Not at all. >>Nobody is alleging an anti-Fritz conspiracy. The results are dubious; >>that's why he is saying it. >> >>eric > > >You both are *saying* this, neither of you are *explaining* why. Probably because we both assumed you had also read recent threads like "Some thoughts on engine vs. engine testing". In a nutshell this sort of testing is unreliable because we know there are some problems with running both engines on one machine, and we can infer that there are an unknown number of similar possible issues. For example, the time allocation code for a program will be based on the assumption that the program thinks while the opponent's clock is running, which is not the case in engine-engine testing. Correctly allocating time for making moves is non-trivial, and it's unlikely that programmers design or test for engine-engine conditions. Hash tables are another issue, and some of the machines used for these engine-engine tests don't have enough RAM to allow optimal hash tables for both programs. We also don't have the source code for the Chessbase interface to know what other resource allocation issues there might be. In short the gold standard for such tests is clearly running the programs on two separate machines. When this is done Hiarcs and Fritz appear very close in strength. As a result it's not impressive when someone does an engine-engine test that shows one to be far superior to the other, and even less impressive when they keep doing it despite being told why single machine engine-engine tests cannot be taken seriously.
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