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Subject: Re: FPGAs playing chess--an expert opinion

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 06:21:45 12/18/99

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On December 18, 1999 at 06:29:22, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On December 17, 1999 at 21:50:32, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
><cut useless, uninformed tirade about DB's eval function>
>>Apart from this discussion great discussion about FPGA. You're however
>>comparing with deep blue. I'm only interested in how much faster my program
>>can get if i for example put my evaluation to FPGA.
>
>I think that putting your eval() on a good FPGA wouldn't be too hard. The main
>problem is that every time you want to run eval(), you have to send the FPGA the
>board position and grab the result. So that's a bottleneck. I think you could
>probably get a net speedup, but it's not like your eval() will run infinitely
>fast.
>
>-Tom


Or you can design something like the 1978 Belle hardware.  Build a module that
stores the chess board, generates moves, makes/unmakes moves, and evaluates
positions.  Now you can use the new circuit module to hold the chess board,
have it update the board (faster than a software make/unmake), and now the
board position is sitting right by the FPGA eval.

Problem is it won't be hugely faster, but it will certainly be significantly
faster.  Now, instead of alpha/beta being 15-20% of the total search, it will
become 90%+




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