Author: Nicolas Carrasco
Date: 08:42:38 11/14/99
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I saw on Chess magazine that a Computer Chess Tournament was perfectly played on PC's of 200 MHz. If that programs can't run on a standard CPU(no matter PC,MAC,a slow ALPHA,...) I think there are 3 options: 1- Put all chess engines on hardware with similar speed. 2- Tell that programers that this isn't his day. 3- Play VS a chess engine with a CPU 3 or 4 times faster and maybe 64 bits. In most cases the program is what matters to people, not the combination of HARDWARE and SOFTWARE. And if the combination is IMPORTANT we should not say the name of the software and put a name to the COMPUTER. On November 14, 1999 at 02:10:24, Eugene Nalimov wrote: >I already posted on that topic several months ago, and sorry for re-post, but I >think I could not formulate it better now: > >Subject: Re: 9th WCCC99 . '' june 14 - 20 " Notable ausence. >From: Eugene Nalimov >E-mail: eugenen@microsoft.com >Message Number: 54137 >Date: June 03, 1999 at 14:29:21 > In Reply to: Re: 9th WCCC99 . '' june 14 - 20 " Notable ausence. > Message ID: 54031 > Posted by: Prakash Das > At: pdas@mcs.com > On: June 03, 1999 at 00:07:02 > >Ok, let's be fair. Let's imagine the situation where orgnizers will give every >participant quad Alpha 21264. Fair? After that some participants will refuse to >play - "our program will not run there, because it's written in x86 assembly, or >don't use more than one CPU, or don't tuned for such a speed, or...". My guess >is that exactly the same people that say "it's unfair when the hardware is >different" will say "Ok, but best commercial programs did not play, so winner is >not World Champion". > >Or Fritz representative will say "Ok, I cannot run on your Alpha, so let me >bring my x86 machine - I want to participate, even with disadvantage". What to >do now? > >So, organizers decided to stay with x86, and will give each participants quad >Xeon. Nevertheless, some participants will say "our program will not exploit >four CPUs", so again there will be no fair play. And there will be chess >program for a Sony Playstation, or Nintendo, of specialized chess board. And >then there will be (crazy) person who wrote his program in PPC assembly for Mac. >Why ban those program? > >Ok, let's ban them, and give single-CPU x86 to everybody. What now? Some will >say "we spent a lot of time debugging parallel search instead of rewriting our >program in x86 assembly, or we deliberately left our program in C, so it can be >portable, and worked on other aspects of engine. Others wrote their program in >x86 assembly. Now, why our hard work is not honored? We have a disadvantage". > >So, organizers decided to allow any micro, but not "big iron". After that >somebody will say "they brought 32-CPUs Alpha, and it actually costs more than >our System/3090 in minimal configuration. And their nps is higher. Why we are >not allowed?". More, somebody will come with specialized chess chip, and he will >say "it really costs less than even quad Alpha that is provided by the >organizers". > >So, it looks that there will be unhappy people in any situation. With the >current rules there is clear distinction - there is WCCC, WMCCC, and some time >ago there was "equal hardware championship". Unfortunately, due to lack >offinancing (or maybe due to lack of qualified organizers, because old ones >became tired, and next generation can only criticize) this year tournirs are >"combined". IMHO, it's better to have not ideal solution than to have no >solution at all. And if x86 commercial program will lose to some hardware >monster, they at least can say "we have a hardware disadvantage", so in a sense >everybody will be happy. > >Eugene > >On November 13, 1999 at 20:30:01, Nicolas Carrasco wrote: > >>Yes, but it is an abuse to play VS a CPU greater than 600 MHz. Those who have >>that fast machines always have a lagger one. >> >>Only my opinion :) >> >>On November 13, 1999 at 15:01:56, Bruce Moreland wrote: >> >>>On November 13, 1999 at 12:11:19, Nicolas Carrasco wrote: >>> >>>>I think that this is a great idea, but for doing a tournament I think all chess >>>>programs must have the same hardware and how you can detect that at ICC? >>> >>>You can't have a uniform event, unless you want to have a bunch of people not >>>play. Not everyone owns the same compputer. >>> >>>bruce
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