Author: David Blackman
Date: 23:45:25 02/25/00
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On February 25, 2000 at 15:07:04, paul bedrey wrote: > I recently received a comment by a computer chess pro stating that Intel has >a propriatory Floating Point code and that AMD although close doesn't exactly >duplicate it. He said it may be why most of my chess programs have problems >running on my AMD K6 475. Can any programers confirm or deny this? >I hope I don't have to buy a new cpu just to cure my addiction to chess! > >Thanks Floating point is not a big item in most chess programs. Most chess engines don't use floating point at all. There might be a bit of floating point in other areas such as the user interface. I doubt that the recent Intel extensions (SSE?) are used in anything except a few 3D games, certainly not for chess. It's worth noting that SSE is very new, and won't work on older Intel chips such as Pentium-2, Celeron-A etc, so most programmers avoid it. They don't want to wipe out such a large section of the market. I think your problem is something different. Here are a few possibilities: Did AMD actually make a K6 475 ? Or is your's a 400 or something overclocked? Overclocked chips often look like they work most of the time, but then occasionally crash when you stress them out with something like a chess program. Some of the AMD based systems are made extremely cheaply and might be a bit light on for cooling etc. This is not AMD's fault, usually it's the fault of your local computer shop building from miscellaneous parts and putting a hot chip and motherboard in a box not designed for it. Try running with the cover off and a fan pointing at the motherboard. (But maybe not when the FCC is looking). Assuming this is a Windows system, you might have some suspect device drivers, or registry entries, etc. A complete re-install of Windows can sometimes help. Getting device drivers from the net from the company that actually makes the devices, instead of from the usually clueless company that sells them, can help. (For new hardware, even the drivers on the Windows CD are sometimes buggy.) Finally, especially with commercial chess programs, it can help to visit the website of the people who wrote the program. If it is a bug in their software working with some special hardware, chances are they already know about it, and they might even have a patch you can download.
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