Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 13:53:35 01/03/00
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On January 03, 2000 at 03:25:35, Bertil Eklund wrote: >On January 02, 2000 at 07:08:32, Rajen Gupta wrote: > >> >> >> >>>>> Doubling the speed of the engine is supposed to produce an increase of about >>>>>60 elo points. >>>> >>>>I do not think that this assumption is right against humans. >>>> >>>>Uri >> >>>> >>>Why? >>> >>>Bertil >>Hi all;i think the answer is best summed up by what bob hyatt has been saying >>all along-ie a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and in the case of >>computer chess this weak link consists of lack of long range and startegic >>planning and lack of positional understanding-once this weak link is identified, >>it can be attacked by a good enough chess player anfd further increases in >>computer hardware wouldn't make much difference.in computer vs computers on the >>other hand are playing to each others strenghths rather than weaknesse so >>hardware increse would show up significantly-i think this has been pretty clear >>from the inability of rebel to have a plus score against grandmasters >> >>rajen > >Hi! > >Mr Hyatt has already answered on this with two tongues, yes. He admits though, >that his Crafty on quad Xeon is better than his Scrappy on quad Pentium Pro. > >When did it happened that the increase of speed stopped programs from playing >better? With the step from 286 to 386, from 386-486 or is it the step from >Pentium to Pentium2 or perhaps Deep Thought on one, four or sixteen cpu´s. > >Bertil I don't answer "with two tongues". I have said _many_ times, "computer vs computer games tend to exaggerate the rating difference between the two programs when only one thing is changed." It has been common knowledge that a machine twice as fast will enjoy a <roughly> 60-70 point advantage over the _same_ program on the original (1/2 speed) hardware. This number was not a guess. It was gleaned from years of testing on faster and faster hardware by many different people... From the SSDF to IM Larry Kaufman. But it is only valid in the context it was tested, machine vs machine. There is _nothing_ that suggests that 2x hardware is 60-70 Elo points better against _human_ players. Such data is more difficult to obtain because no one plays that many games and records the results. But I agree with Uri. Against a GM, a program that would have a fide rating of X on a PII/400 would not have a rating of X+60 on a PII/800 processor. In many cases the improvement will be zero, because often depth is not the only issue. Knowledge comes into play, and depth doesn't always equate with more knowledge. We may never know what doubling does vs GM players because we need a lot of data and it is not coming very quickly.
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