Problems and setbacks setting up Winboard programs -- a doze

[Tom King]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Tom King at 12 May 2000 23:36:01:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Re: Problems and setbacks setting up Winboard programs -- a dozen NT oddities geschrieben von: / posted by: Dann Corbit at 12 May 2000 07:24:01:

I am not able to get operational (Under Windows NT 4.0!) the following programs:
1. Colchess (nothing happens, both engines start and just take up memory, flag falls)
2. Fortress (works as white only -- fails as black)
3. Francesca (crashes)

Have you tried everything? Like reducing the name and rebooting?
Yes, it is unreliable on my machine too.
It has to be x moves in y minutes to avoid crashing. Game/x doesn't work.

You simply would not believe all the things I have tried. Since I did a port of this program and since I like it very much, I have an emotional stake in getting it to work. I have the advice from 4 top experts and nothing seems to make it operational. The only thing I have not done is move the whole operation to the C drive from the E drive, but I won't do that.
Ack. That goofs up my format. I'll probably have to disqualify this program if a new version that knows how to run G/n is not created in time.

Ok, Dan, will try to get a fix done and update posted real soon.
I've got a new, experimental version of Francesca with some eval. and
performance tweaks, which may be a few ELO points stronger than v0.78
So I'll probably fix this bug, wrap it all up as Francesca v0.79, then
release it.
Sorry for the problems you've had!
Cheers,
Tom King

[Dann Corbit]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Dann Corbit at 12 May 2000 23:41:47:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Re: Problems and setbacks setting up Winboard programs -- a dozen NT oddities geschrieben von: / posted by: pete at 12 May 2000 22:27:02:

2. Fortress (works as white only -- fails as black)

Does it not work at all or does it fail sometimes ? On my Windows98-system Fortress will refuse to play with Black against certain opponents always and against others sometimes . Maybe no OS-specific thing .

You may be on to something here...
Maybe (for instance) it does not like to get e2e4 first or maybe e2-e4 or e4 or whatever since it might expect a single nomenclature. Perhaps some opponents use a nomenclature it is not familiar with. I will check this out.
Excellent tip!

Yes , this was also my conclusion ; I already studied some logfiles and had some initial ideas but as my C abilities are really limitted I didn't take time to look at Fortress' source code yet.
Fortress is such a nice engine ; unfortunately these problems make it a very problematic contender in a tournament .
see also :
http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/messages/4086.htm

?
Does Fortress come with source code?
?


My FTP site

[Dann Corbit]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Dann Corbit at 12 May 2000 23:44:48:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Fix promised! geschrieben von: / posted by: Tom King at 12 May 2000 23:36:01:

I am not able to get operational (Under Windows NT 4.0!) the following programs:
1. Colchess (nothing happens, both engines start and just take up memory, flag falls)
2. Fortress (works as white only -- fails as black)
3. Francesca (crashes)

Have you tried everything? Like reducing the name and rebooting?
Yes, it is unreliable on my machine too.
It has to be x moves in y minutes to avoid crashing. Game/x doesn't work.

You simply would not believe all the things I have tried. Since I did a port of this program and since I like it very much, I have an emotional stake in getting it to work. I have the advice from 4 top experts and nothing seems to make it operational. The only thing I have not done is move the whole operation to the C drive from the E drive, but I won't do that.
Ack. That goofs up my format. I'll probably have to disqualify this program if a new version that knows how to run G/n is not created in time.

Ok, Dan, will try to get a fix done and update posted real soon.
I've got a new, experimental version of Francesca with some eval. and
performance tweaks, which may be a few ELO points stronger than v0.78
So I'll probably fix this bug, wrap it all up as Francesca v0.79, then
release it.

That's good news. Francesca is a strong engine and it would be a shame to leave it out.


My FTP site

[pete]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: pete at 13 May 2000 00:00:29:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Re: Problems and setbacks setting up Winboard programs -- a dozen NT oddities geschrieben von: / posted by: Dann Corbit at 12 May 2000 23:41:47:

2. Fortress (works as white only -- fails as black)

Does it not work at all or does it fail sometimes ? On my Windows98-system Fortress will refuse to play with Black against certain opponents always and against others sometimes . Maybe no OS-specific thing .

You may be on to something here...
Maybe (for instance) it does not like to get e2e4 first or maybe e2-e4 or e4 or whatever since it might expect a single nomenclature. Perhaps some opponents use a nomenclature it is not familiar with. I will check this out.
Excellent tip!

Yes , this was also my conclusion ; I already studied some logfiles and had some initial ideas but as my C abilities are really limitted I didn't take time to look at Fortress' source code yet.
Fortress is such a nice engine ; unfortunately these problems make it a very problematic contender in a tournament .
see also :
http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/messages/4086.htm

?
Does Fortress come with source code?
?

sorry , my mistake : it is very unusual for a LINUX thing to come without sourcecode so I didn't even check ; Fortress seems to come as a static binary even on LINUX ; at least I couldn't find the binary .
sorry again.
pete

[Rémi Coulom]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Rémi Coulom at 13 May 2000 20:53:00:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Problems and setbacks setting up Winboard programs -- a dozen NT oddities geschrieben von: / posted by: Dann Corbit at 12 May 2000 06:57:16:

12. Also, TCBishop does not seem to be using its opening book (though Gromit3 does and Gromit3 uses the same sort of book...)
Here is my TCB init file:
E:\PROGRA~2\winboard\TCBishop>type tcbxinit.cui
prompt off
; Eugene Nalimov's EGTBs
; ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chesslib
nalimov
init e:\programme\winboard\nalimov
cache 2097152
x
p
special
; Opening-Book
; ~~~~~~~~~~~~
fbkbook fritz4.fbk
; Hash-Tables
; ~~~~~~~~~~~
size 33554432
x

no, Gromit special commands are different from TCB's. The command to load the opening book for TCB should be something like :
pgnbook

[Rémi Coulom]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Rémi Coulom at 13 May 2000 20:57:32:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: Re: Problems and setbacks setting up Winboard programs -- a dozen NT oddities geschrieben von: / posted by: Rémi Coulom at 13 May 2000 20:53:00:

no, Gromit special commands are different from TCB's. The command to load the opening book for TCB should be something like :
pgnbook Remi

Soory, I meant:
pgnbook "inferior" fritz4.pgn
where "inferior" is the redirection operator
(I do not know how to make it appear clearly on this board)
Remi

[Dann Corbit]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Dann Corbit at 15 May 2000 20:19:30:
Als Antwort auf: / As an answer to: correction geschrieben von: / posted by: Rémi Coulom at 13 May 2000 20:57:32:

no, Gromit special commands are different from TCB's. The command to load the opening book for TCB should be something like :
pgnbook >Remi

Soory, I meant:
pgnbook "inferior" fritz4.pgn
where "inferior" is the redirection operator
(I do not know how to make it appear clearly on this board)

Thanks. I have it working now.

My FTP site