Installing Engines

[dogbert2]

Hello,

I am new to using Winboard, and have managed to get the crafty engine installed, but I'm having the following issues with a couple of engines.

My computer (Win 7 ultimate 64-bit, Phenom II X4, 16GB RAM, nVidia GT240 w/1GB GDDR3)

Winboard 4.5.1 using Tom's Winboard Engine Manager 1.41

Fire-1.31 (will not start due to fire.cfg not being present) - I didn't see this file in the zip/rar archive, how do you generate it?)

Stockfish will start, but does nothing (here is some output from the debugger):

nice engine proc to 10
1234 >first : xboard
protover 2
1245 <first : Stockfish 2.0.1 JA 64bit by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, Joona Kiiski
1246 <first : Unknown command: xboard
1246 <first : Unknown command: protover 2
11252 >first : new
random
11252 >first : level 40 5 0
11252 >first : post
11252 >first : hard
11255 <first : Unknown command: new
11255 <first : Unknown command: random
11255 <first : Unknown command: level 40 5 0
11255 <first : Unknown command: post
11255 <first : Unknown command: hard

From what I see here, looks like it doesn't understand xboard/winboard (I could be wrong)...

Here is the Houdini engine (I make my first move, but Black never seems to move, even after the clock has reached zero)

StartChildProcess (dir="c:\winboard-4.5.1\houdini") Houdini_15a_x64
nice engine proc to 10
1181 >first : xboard
protover 2
1195 <first : Houdini 1.5a x64
1195 <first : (c) 2010-11 Robert Houdart
1195 <first :
1195 <first : info string POPCNT available
1195 <first : info string 128 MB Hash
11188 >first : new
random
11188 >first : level 40 5 0
11188 >first : post
11188 >first : hard
7 0 4 7 0 4 Legality test? e2e4
TC string = ':40/300'
mps=40 tc=300000 inc=0
CoordsToAlgebraic, piece=0 (4,1)-(4,3) -
7 0 4 7 0 4 Legality test? e2e4
movetype=21, promochar=0=-
MateTest: K=1, my=16, his=16
move: e2e4
, parse: e4 (
)
MateTest: K=1, my=16, his=16
repeat test fmm=1 bmm=0 ep=-4, reps=3
1 ep=-3
0 ep=-4
nps: w=-1, b=-1
nps: w=-1, b=-1
time odds: 1.000000 1.000000
40995 >first : time 30000
40995 >first : otim 30000
book hit = (NULL)
40996 >first : e2e4
size-move
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
moving
exit size-move, size = 49
square size = 49
TC string = ':40/300'
mps=40 tc=300000 inc=0
GameEnds(25, White wins on time, 4)
Interrupting first
341006 >first : result 1-0 {White wins on time}
341006 >first : force

I win by default, but somewhat pointless

Can someone help me figure out what is going on here?

[Olivier Deville]

Hello, and welcome to the Winboard Forum

Stockfish and Houdini are UCI engines, so they don't understand xboard protocol. You need polyglot in order to have them working under Winboard. Reading the help file will probably give you some hints on how to do this.

I have no idea about Fire, since I never downloaded this engine.

Olivier

[dogbert2]

[quote="Olivier Deville"]Hello, and welcome to the Winboard Forum

>Stockfish and Houdini are UCI engines, so they don't understand xboard protocol. You need polyglot in order to have them working under >Winboard. Reading the help file will probably give you some hints on how to do this.

I believe I have solved the problem with Stockfish and Houdini, I was trying to start them from the Engine Manager, so on a hunch, I
tried the Winboard Startup Dialog and selected Stockfish for Engine 1 and 2, and clicked ok, and it started working. I also did the same
for Houdini (it is now working).

What is the proper way to start Winboard, using the startup dialog, or just making a shortcut on the desktop? (dialog seems more flexible).

IMO, the startup dialog should have a choice of (human vs engine, engine vs engine, internet chess server, and view/edit), perhaps in the next version it will be added so that it makes a little more sense (in human vs engine, the 2nd engine choice would be grayed out).

>I have no idea about Fire, since I never downloaded this engine.

I'm still having problems with this one also, so hopefully someone who has gotten fire-1.31 working will let us know.

At least stockfish and houdini are working...

Thanks

[Michel]

For an UCI engine you should simply add -fUCI or -sUCI to the command line (respectively for the first and second engine). Then xboard/winboard
will invoke polyglot internally and transparently (assuming that everything is correctly installed).

[Norm Pollock]

I started using Winboard after a long absence from it. I am using it to play against a couple of "5th division" engines. The way I go about installing the engines is to edit the "winboard.ini" file in the same directory with "winboard.exe". That works with versions 4.4.x, but for versions 4.5.x it does not. I found out that if I go to "\documents and settings\owner-name\application data", then I can edit the "winboard.ini" there and versions 4.5.x will work. The troubles with that are two-fold. First the folder "application data" is hidden, and second its location prevents me from using winboard and engines on a portable usb stick. So it seems that I cannot use 4.5.x the way I want to, but at least I can use 4.4.x.

Most likely there is a better way to set up 4.5.x, but I do not know what that way is.

best,
Norm

[F.Huber]

Hi Norm,

Most likely there is a better way to set up 4.5.x, but I do not know what that way is.

yes, there is indeed a better way!

My problem with the default WinBoard.ini was even worse, it completely crashed Winboard on my Windows 98.
After having looked at the INI-file I found the reason for this problem, it were the following 2 lines at the end of the INI:

/saveSettingsFile=%APPDATA%\winboard.ini
/settingsFile=%APPDATA%\winboard.ini

If you comment-out (or delete) these both lines everything works fine, then Winboard uses the INI-file in the current folder!

Regards,
Franz

[H.G.Muller]

Indeed, this is purely a matter of configuring, not an intrinsic property of 4.5.x itself.

Note that the splitting of the settings file into a never-overwritten part (the 'master settings file') and a part where the settings are saved ('user settings file') does have some advantages: you can specify settings of volatile options in the master without losing them on the next Save Settings, and you can turn persistent options into volatile ones by specifying them in the master file after the specification of the user file.

So rather than commenting out the two lines mentioned above, I would recommend to change them to

/settingsFile="settings.ini"
/saveSettingsFile="settings.ini"

That way you get rid of the AppData part, and the file will be made in the WinBoard folder. (So on the USB stick, if you have WinBoard there.) The only thing you have to remember is that you now have to edit settings.ini rather than winboard.ini.

Further note that the need for editing the ini file externally has been miimized, by providing the "Engine->Install" and "Options->Add ICS" menu items that automatically locate the settings file for you. These allow you to edit the list of engines and ICS. Changing other options in the file can smply be done by mentioning the new value in the Additional Options fieldof the Startup dialog.