Announcing Yace 0.17

[Dieter Bürßner]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Dieter Bürßner at 16 June 2000 23:15:09:
Yace 0.17 can be downloaded from Frank Quisinsky's pages:
http://www.in-trier.de/~quisinsky/schac ... oad-15.htm
and probably soon from Dann Corbits's site as well.
(ftp://38.168.214.175/pub/Yace)
It seems, that for some people Dann's version is faster and for other
people (like me) the version I sent to Frank is faster. It really
won't make a big difference in terms of playing strength.
The most important change is a fix of the timing code. On some windows
systems, the timing in Yace just wouldn't work. Volker Pittlik was extremly
helpful when I tried to fix this. Other news are appended. No engine changes
in this versiom, so, when you have version 0.15, and it works for you, and
you don't need the new features, there is no need for downloading this
version.
Is there be any interest in a linux x86 version?
Regards,
Dieter
Version 0.17 16.06.2000
Small addition to readme.txt
Fixed bug in Position editing. (Castling rights might have been wrong.)
Accept the name of the ini file as a command line option. This
makes testing of tuning parameters easier. So you can call
yace yacetest.ini
To make logging work, both instances must write to a different logfile.
No other command line options are accepted. When no command line
option is given, yace.ini will be used.
Fixed timing bug on some Windows system. Thanks to Volker Pittlik
for finding this, and his help with debugging.
Added loga command. (Append to logfile)
Suggesting to use loga yace.log in yace.ini (Formerly, log yace.ini
was suggested.)
While doing this found a bug in the log command. When a second log
command was given, the old file wasn't closed. (Would be closed
at program end anyway, but this way, one could run out of file
descriptors)
Added rmoves and rscore commands. When Yace detects rmoves moves
with a score smaller than rscore, it will resign. Allowed values
for rmoves are 3 = -20. rscore
can be a floatimg point value (I.e. rscore=-6.8). To let Yace resign
soon, put the following lines into yace.ini:
resign om
rmoves 3
rscore -6
Still, Yace will not resign by default. The (new) default for rscore is -8.0
and for rmoves 4. Thanks to Mogens Larsen for his suggestion.
Version 0.16 14.06.2000
(Hopefully) found the repetition bug. (Thanks to Gabor Szots for posting
the FIDE rules.) I thought the position must be repeated 3 times (vs.
occure for the third time)
Version 0.15
Implement an experimental version of resigning. To enable put a line
resign on into yace.ini. (Default is resign off.) No clock considerations
yet.
Updated readme.txt a little bit.
Make the not supported commands silent in xboard mode.
Implement post/nopost.
Accept the analyze command, answer: Error (unknown command): analyze
Accept the bk command.
Accept the computer command.
Accept the name command.
Accept the rating command.
Accept the hint command.
Accept the draw command. All of these are noops.
Bug fixed in time code (for Windows only).
Bug fixed where draw was not recognized, because only one move was possible.
New hash table strategy: Make it easier to overwrite entries from previous
search.
Less lines posted in xboard_mode.
Posting shows some more information.
.: finished this depth
f.: after search is over, finished this depth
u.: after search is over, this depth is partly unfinished
t: best at this depth so far
t+: move seems better (fail high), research with larger window *)
t-: fails low again (shouldn't happen too ofen) *)
++: Much better than expected, start search again with new window. *)
--: Much worse than expected, start search again with new window. *)
*)
PV shown doesn't make much sense, it is such the PV that failed high
or low. The researching should show a better PV.
Version 0.14
Minor evaluation tweak: Yace shouldn't loose castling rights that easy
anymore. Freepawn are a tiny bit more worth now. Default positional
score is a bit higher now.
New command pval:
pval=1.0 [default, old default would have been 0.67]
pval=1.5 [positional scores are higher]
The "=" can be replaced by one (or more) space character(s).
Values between 0.5 and 2.0 are accepted.
To experiment put such a line in yace.ini
Of course no floating point will be used internally.
Changed invalid move to Illegal move.
Don't complain about result anymore (but still ignore).
Move ordering enhancements.
Added a few error messages.
Deleted some debug output.

[Dann Corbit]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Dann Corbit at 16 June 2000 23:50:47:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Announcing Yace 0.17 geschrieben von: / posted by: Dieter Bürßner at 16 June 2000 23:15:09:

Yace 0.17 can be downloaded from Frank Quisinsky's pages:
http://www.in-trier.de/~quisinsky/schac ... oad-15.htm
and probably soon from Dann Corbits's site as well.
(ftp://38.168.214.175/pub/Yace)
It seems, that for some people Dann's version is faster and for other
people (like me) the version I sent to Frank is faster.
It really
won't make a big difference in terms of playing strength.
The most important change is a fix of the timing code. On some windows
systems, the timing in Yace just wouldn't work. Volker Pittlik was extremly
helpful when I tried to fix this. Other news are appended. No engine changes
in this versiom, so, when you have version 0.15, and it works for you, and
you don't need the new features, there is no need for downloading this
version.
Is there be any interest in a linux x86 version?

If you have an INTEL chip that is Pentium Pro, PII or PIII, I think mine will do better. If you have some other compatible chip, Dieter's is probably better.
I measure about 6% difference, which is probably about 1 or 2 ELO. Nothing to get excited about.
Your advancement with this engine is absolutely incredible. And it plays very interesting chess/
The Linux gear heads will probably be jumping for joy. They are greatly shortchanged on what is available for chess engines.


My FTP site

[Dann Corbit]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Dann Corbit at 17 June 2000 00:02:48:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Re: Announcing Yace 0.17 geschrieben von: / posted by: Dann Corbit at 16 June 2000 23:50:47:

By the way, 0.17 is on my ftp site now (It has been there a while, but I did not explicity state that fact.)


My FTP site

[Colin Frayn]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Colin Frayn at 17 June 2000 12:59:57:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Re: Announcing Yace 0.17 geschrieben von: / posted by: Dann Corbit at 16 June 2000 23:50:47:

Is there be any interest in a linux x86 version?

The Linux gear heads will probably be jumping for joy.
They are greatly shortchanged on what is available for chess engines.

*jumps for joy*
Yeah that's pretty accurate. I have a fair number of engines, but not enough to do any decent tournaments or test the full range of my own program's abilities.
Cheers,
Colin

[Dieter Buerssner]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Dieter Buerssner at 17 June 2000 14:47:33:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Re: Announcing Yace 0.17 geschrieben von: / posted by: Colin Frayn at 17 June 2000 12:59:57:

Is there be any interest in a linux x86 version?

The Linux gear heads will probably be jumping for joy.
They are greatly shortchanged on what is available for chess engines.

*jumps for joy*
Yeah that's pretty accurate. I have a fair number of engines, but not enough to do any decent tournaments or test the full range of my own program's abilities.

Anybody interested in testing Yace for Linux, can send me a note. I will send
a zip (45k). Works for me under xboard and stand alone.
Regards,
Dieter