How to set up Pro Deo in Winboard
Posted: 21 Nov 2008, 07:28When I first started using Winboard, Pro Deo was one of the first engines I successfully set up.
I'm posting this for any people that might be looking for solutions.
This is it I'm sure - I'm out of ideas.
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How to set up Ed Schröder's Pro Deo chess engine as a Winboard engine in the Winboard GUI.
(The below is some words and graphics, but it takes longer to read the below post than it actually takes to set up Pro Deo as a Winboard engine in the Winboard GUI.)
From Mr. Schröder's website - http://www.top-5000.nl/ - currently on the right side of the page is a link for downloading Pro Deo 1.6.
Here I have downloaded the file to my "Chess Engines" folder and I have extracted the contents to that folder. What was extracted from the zip file was the "ProDeo16" folder and the "setup" executable file.
I delete the zip file and the "setup" executable file. The only thing that remains is the "ProDeo16" folder. You can name this folder what you want, but in this example I will leave the name as ProDeo16.
Setting up Pro Deo in Winboard is basically simple. To be honest there is a lot to this engine and I haven't really explored all of its possibilities. What is being shown here though will get a person up and running with using the chess engine.
In the ProDeo16 folder are two things to note. First off is the "readme" file.
Opening the "readme" file and scrolling down till this section is seen -
The above section in the readme file has to do with the hash table settings for Pro Deo. Instead of using megabyte numbers for the hash table settings, Pro Deo uses codes to signify how many megabytes the hash table is being set to. As an example: If we wanted to set the hash table for Pro Deo to 96 megabytes we would use w3 for the setting, not the numeral 96. We'll come back to the hash table setting in a few minutes.
The next thing to look at is the "personal" folder. Mr. Schröder has given Pro Deo the capability to use different personalities. This is what is in the personal folder -
The two things shown above, the readme file and the personal folder, are the two things to note for now. I should also point out the ProDeo.exe file that is in the ProDeo16 folder. This ProDeo.exe file is the Pro Deo Winboard chess engine. We will come back to these things in a few seconds.
Now we'll turn our attention to the Winboard GUI. In this example I am going to start off with with a new winboard.ini file. Of course if I already had a winboard.ini set up I would just add the data to it, no need to start with a new winboard.ini file each time a chess engine's data is inputted.
Opening the ini file I scroll down to this section in the file -
In this section will be inputted the data that the Winboard GUI needs to function with the Pro Deo Winboard chess engine.
A caveat. Below is the way I set up this section of the winboard.ini file. I have seen, and if you are new to this you may in the future see, other people input the data differently than I do. Please do not discount what you see other people do here. It may be that the way they do it is a better way than I do, maybe even a way that you would prefer to do it. But one thing is for certain, some things have to be done a certain way in this section or else the Winboard GUI will not be able to communicate effectively with the chess engine (whichever chess engine that might be). It's a learning experience, and not too difficult of one at that really.
This is what I input into this section of the winboard.ini file -
And here, what is shown in the graphic above is displayed as code -
In the /fd= section I have input the path to the folder (directory) that my copy of the ProDeo.exe file is in.
In the /fcp= section I have put the ProDeo.exe file name. No need to put the .exe extension on the end. But if the executables file name was - ProDeo1.6 - then we would need to put the .exe extension on the end because the file name would then have two periods [.]. As it is there in no additional period in the filename, just one period, so just inputting - ProDeo - is fine. This from the Winboard help file tells about it:
Also in the /fcp= section above it can be seen that w4 has been put in. That is because 128MB is the hash table I decided to use, and from the "readme" file mentioned above, w4 to Pro Deo signifies 128 megabytes for the hash table.
Lastly in the /fcp= section I put the name for the prodeo.eng personality that is in the "personal" folder that was also mentioned above. The .eng extension does have to be included in the personality name.
So Pro Deo is all set up in the winboard.ini file. I close the winboard.ini file and save the changes that were made.
Now I go to the Winboard GUI and open it up. And with "Play against a chess engine or match two engines" selected I click OK.
Just for the heck of it I'll go to "Engines > Options" and check "Ponder Next Move" and "Enable and Show Thinking".
Then going to "Options > Time Control" an one hour game with each side having thirty minutes each will be set up.
With me playing white, and after a few careless moves I stop (abort) the game.
Then going to the Pro Deo chess engine folder (ProDeo16) I see that a file named "param" has been created - Param equals Parameters.
Opening this Param.txt file it can be seen that the settings that were inputted into the winboard.ini file were indeed successful. The ProDeo.eng personality is being used and the setting for the hash table is 128MB -
Now say we want to use a different personality from the personal folder. Lets choose the Vishy Anand.eng personality file.
So in the winboard.ini file we changed some data and this is what we have in the ini file now. I have also changed the hash table to w3 - w3 equals a 96MB hash table.
Now if you used the above shown setting in the winboard.ini file for the Vishy Anand.eng personality and you moved a few pieces on the chessboard, and then went to check the param.txt file in the ProDeo16 folder, you would see that the hash table setting did change to 96MB but there is no personality listed. Something is wrong
What is wrong is that the personality file name has spaces in it - Vishy Anand.eng. The first personality that was used in this example - ProDeo.eng - did not have spaces in the file name so it worked fine.
This is a Winboard GUI problem not a Pro Deo problem. The Winboard help file says this about spaces in the engine name or engine argument -
So to rectify the situation we input the data for the Vishy Anand.eng file the acceptable way into the winboard.ini file. All that was done below is that quote marks were added at both ends of the - Vishy Anand.eng - entry, with the single quote mark placed on the outside.
The above shown as code:
And now after opening the Winboard GUI and making a few moves, going back to the param file it is seen that the Vishy Anand.eng personality is successfully being used. All it took was quote marks around the file name.
That is all there is to getting Pro Deo set up in Winboard as a Winboard engine. As was mentioned above there are a lot of possibilities with this engine that I do not know about, but I do know from reading that there are functions I have not even tried with it yet.
Doing a search with a search engine on - chess Ed Schröder Pro Deo - or similar terms, should bring up a lot of pages of information to look at to expand the knowledge base should it be desired to get deeper into using the Pro Deo chess engine and taking advantage of what it has to offer.
I'm not aware of any serious errors I made in the process outlined above, but errors may still exist.
The post below this one will look at setting up the Pro Deo chess engine to work as an UCI chess engine with the Polyglot adapter in the Winboard GUI.
I'm posting this for any people that might be looking for solutions.
Roger Brown in another forum thread wrote:When will you be making the next instalment?
This is it I'm sure - I'm out of ideas.
**************************************
How to set up Ed Schröder's Pro Deo chess engine as a Winboard engine in the Winboard GUI.
(The below is some words and graphics, but it takes longer to read the below post than it actually takes to set up Pro Deo as a Winboard engine in the Winboard GUI.)
From Mr. Schröder's website - http://www.top-5000.nl/ - currently on the right side of the page is a link for downloading Pro Deo 1.6.
Here I have downloaded the file to my "Chess Engines" folder and I have extracted the contents to that folder. What was extracted from the zip file was the "ProDeo16" folder and the "setup" executable file.
I delete the zip file and the "setup" executable file. The only thing that remains is the "ProDeo16" folder. You can name this folder what you want, but in this example I will leave the name as ProDeo16.
Setting up Pro Deo in Winboard is basically simple. To be honest there is a lot to this engine and I haven't really explored all of its possibilities. What is being shown here though will get a person up and running with using the chess engine.
In the ProDeo16 folder are two things to note. First off is the "readme" file.
Opening the "readme" file and scrolling down till this section is seen -
The above section in the readme file has to do with the hash table settings for Pro Deo. Instead of using megabyte numbers for the hash table settings, Pro Deo uses codes to signify how many megabytes the hash table is being set to. As an example: If we wanted to set the hash table for Pro Deo to 96 megabytes we would use w3 for the setting, not the numeral 96. We'll come back to the hash table setting in a few minutes.
The next thing to look at is the "personal" folder. Mr. Schröder has given Pro Deo the capability to use different personalities. This is what is in the personal folder -
The two things shown above, the readme file and the personal folder, are the two things to note for now. I should also point out the ProDeo.exe file that is in the ProDeo16 folder. This ProDeo.exe file is the Pro Deo Winboard chess engine. We will come back to these things in a few seconds.
Now we'll turn our attention to the Winboard GUI. In this example I am going to start off with with a new winboard.ini file. Of course if I already had a winboard.ini set up I would just add the data to it, no need to start with a new winboard.ini file each time a chess engine's data is inputted.
Opening the ini file I scroll down to this section in the file -
In this section will be inputted the data that the Winboard GUI needs to function with the Pro Deo Winboard chess engine.
A caveat. Below is the way I set up this section of the winboard.ini file. I have seen, and if you are new to this you may in the future see, other people input the data differently than I do. Please do not discount what you see other people do here. It may be that the way they do it is a better way than I do, maybe even a way that you would prefer to do it. But one thing is for certain, some things have to be done a certain way in this section or else the Winboard GUI will not be able to communicate effectively with the chess engine (whichever chess engine that might be). It's a learning experience, and not too difficult of one at that really.
This is what I input into this section of the winboard.ini file -
And here, what is shown in the graphic above is displayed as code -
- Code: Select all
}
/firstChessProgramNames={"ProDeo 1.6" /fd="C:\Program Files\Chess\Chess Engines\ProDeo16" /fcp='ProDeo w4 prodeo.eng'
}
/secondChessProgramNames={GNUChess
"GNUChes5 xboard"
}
In the /fd= section I have input the path to the folder (directory) that my copy of the ProDeo.exe file is in.
In the /fcp= section I have put the ProDeo.exe file name. No need to put the .exe extension on the end. But if the executables file name was - ProDeo1.6 - then we would need to put the .exe extension on the end because the file name would then have two periods [.]. As it is there in no additional period in the filename, just one period, so just inputting - ProDeo - is fine. This from the Winboard help file tells about it:
If the engine name has more than one period in it (for example, QChess1.5.exe), you must include the ".exe" extension; otherwise you can leave it out.
Also in the /fcp= section above it can be seen that w4 has been put in. That is because 128MB is the hash table I decided to use, and from the "readme" file mentioned above, w4 to Pro Deo signifies 128 megabytes for the hash table.
Lastly in the /fcp= section I put the name for the prodeo.eng personality that is in the "personal" folder that was also mentioned above. The .eng extension does have to be included in the personality name.
So Pro Deo is all set up in the winboard.ini file. I close the winboard.ini file and save the changes that were made.
Now I go to the Winboard GUI and open it up. And with "Play against a chess engine or match two engines" selected I click OK.
Just for the heck of it I'll go to "Engines > Options" and check "Ponder Next Move" and "Enable and Show Thinking".
Then going to "Options > Time Control" an one hour game with each side having thirty minutes each will be set up.
With me playing white, and after a few careless moves I stop (abort) the game.
Then going to the Pro Deo chess engine folder (ProDeo16) I see that a file named "param" has been created - Param equals Parameters.
Opening this Param.txt file it can be seen that the settings that were inputted into the winboard.ini file were indeed successful. The ProDeo.eng personality is being used and the setting for the hash table is 128MB -
Now say we want to use a different personality from the personal folder. Lets choose the Vishy Anand.eng personality file.
So in the winboard.ini file we changed some data and this is what we have in the ini file now. I have also changed the hash table to w3 - w3 equals a 96MB hash table.
Now if you used the above shown setting in the winboard.ini file for the Vishy Anand.eng personality and you moved a few pieces on the chessboard, and then went to check the param.txt file in the ProDeo16 folder, you would see that the hash table setting did change to 96MB but there is no personality listed. Something is wrong
What is wrong is that the personality file name has spaces in it - Vishy Anand.eng. The first personality that was used in this example - ProDeo.eng - did not have spaces in the file name so it worked fine.
This is a Winboard GUI problem not a Pro Deo problem. The Winboard help file says this about spaces in the engine name or engine argument -
If the engine name or an engine argument has a space in it, use single quotes around the whole command, and inside them use double quotes around each item that contains spaces.
So to rectify the situation we input the data for the Vishy Anand.eng file the acceptable way into the winboard.ini file. All that was done below is that quote marks were added at both ends of the - Vishy Anand.eng - entry, with the single quote mark placed on the outside.
The above shown as code:
- Code: Select all
}
/firstChessProgramNames={"ProDeo 1.6" /fd="C:\Program Files\Chess\Chess Engines\ProDeo16" /fcp='ProDeo w3 "Vishy Anand.eng"'
}
/secondChessProgramNames={GNUChess
"GNUChes5 xboard"
}
And now after opening the Winboard GUI and making a few moves, going back to the param file it is seen that the Vishy Anand.eng personality is successfully being used. All it took was quote marks around the file name.
That is all there is to getting Pro Deo set up in Winboard as a Winboard engine. As was mentioned above there are a lot of possibilities with this engine that I do not know about, but I do know from reading that there are functions I have not even tried with it yet.
Doing a search with a search engine on - chess Ed Schröder Pro Deo - or similar terms, should bring up a lot of pages of information to look at to expand the knowledge base should it be desired to get deeper into using the Pro Deo chess engine and taking advantage of what it has to offer.
I'm not aware of any serious errors I made in the process outlined above, but errors may still exist.
The post below this one will look at setting up the Pro Deo chess engine to work as an UCI chess engine with the Polyglot adapter in the Winboard GUI.
