Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post.

[Roger Brown]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Roger Brown at 10 July 2004 21:18:57:

Hello all,
There was a thread posted below this one with issues that directly concerned the performance of a particular gui which does NOT support WB engines at all.
The gui in particular is a professional one with several desirable features. I personally own several versions. The point is that this is a Winboard Forum.
The problems one may encounter while using this gui are not directly on topic here. Those issues should be taken up with the respective support staff for the gui concerned.
Be that as it may, I have found this Forum to be more than a little blessed with all sorts of technical expertise and providing one off suport is not, in my opinion, undesirable.
That being said, I consider it particularly annoying when a long thread is continued and then a swipe is taken at Winboard by someone claiming that professional engine authors are bypassing this gui. With all due respect to the poster, here are some facts:
The last few entrants into the professional - as in not free - engine ranks have included Ruffian, Deep Sjeng, Patriot and The King 3.33 (the version that is shipping with Chessmaster 10000). All those engines are WB compatible.
As for the amateur engine makers bypassing this gui...well I expect that anyone who visits the Forum would know that the number of freely available WB engines is exploding. There are several engines that I have downloaded but not had a chance to configure.
Amateur WB engines are being cranked out at a wonderful pace per year. Winboard's share of the computerchess market looks good to me for some years to come.
Chesspartner and Chessmaster have excellent Winboard support. I think that their combined sales are in excess of the other commercial guis.
Winboard can be worked on and improved. Tim Mann's approval would be required I suppose. Updating is slow because when Tim mann started down this road I doubt very much he - or anyone else - could have envisioned that the gui designed as a front end for GnuChess (I believe I am right) would end up being the single most popular and supported gui/protocol in the existence of computerchess.
Winboard is ultra stable, tested and proven and easy on my computer resources. Tournaments can be run on it. UCI engines can be run on it thanks to Polyglot. When I want to have a match against Chesstiger I crank up the Chesspartner gui which directly supports WB.
Is Winboard perfect? No. Is Winboard the single most important computerchess protocol right now? I would say yes. Without hesitation.
What is Winboard's future? I would say pretty bright, what with all sorts of hobbyists, enthusiasts, freaks and ordinary people like me playing around with WB and WB compatible guis for years to come.
Everyone is welcome but may I ask that you do not diss Winboard with all the comments about its pre-historic appeal? It has provided many, many hours of immeasurable joy to myself and other members of this Forum.
It is a mark of respect that OT postings are responded to, generally with courtesy and helpful advice. I must ask that the posters refrain from commenting about WB as if it is dying or worse, ready for burial.
Problems in other guis are welcome BUT it would be appreciated that some warning be given in the subject line.
You must admit that Baron crashes is a far different message than Baron crashes in this particular gui when this particular setting is used. Of course, Richard will take it quite personally that his engine does not handle all guis perfectly but that is another whole different issue to the point being made here.

To be fair, the off topic nature of the comments was accepted but I am responding to some of the other issues which arose in that exchange.
WB rulez!!!!
The comments above are the property of the poster only and are not to be taken as representing the opinions of the management of this Forum or its other moderators.



CYA
Later.

Ps. Thanks Gunther Simon. We WB relics have got to stick together......

What's that? When I say relic I speak only for myself? Hahahahahahahahaha.

[Norm Pollock]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Norm Pollock at 10 July 2004 22:05:34:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post. geschrieben von:/posted by: Roger Brown at 10 July 2004 21:18:57:

Hello all,
There was a thread posted below this one with issues that directly concerned the performance of a particular gui which does NOT support WB engines at all.
The gui in particular is a professional one with several desirable features. I personally own several versions. The point is that this is a Winboard Forum.
The problems one may encounter while using this gui are not directly on topic here. Those issues should be taken up with the respective support staff for the gui concerned.
Be that as it may, I have found this Forum to be more than a little blessed with all sorts of technical expertise and providing one off suport is not, in my opinion, undesirable.
That being said, I consider it particularly annoying when a long thread is continued and then a swipe is taken at Winboard by someone claiming that professional engine authors are bypassing this gui. With all due respect to the poster, here are some facts:
The last few entrants into the professional - as in not free - engine ranks have included Ruffian, Deep Sjeng, Patriot and The King 3.33 (the version that is shipping with Chessmaster 10000). All those engines are WB compatible.
As for the amateur engine makers bypassing this gui...well I expect that anyone who visits the Forum would know that the number of freely available WB engines is exploding. There are several engines that I have downloaded but not had a chance to configure.
Amateur WB engines are being cranked out at a wonderful pace per year. Winboard's share of the computerchess market looks good to me for some years to come.
Chesspartner and Chessmaster have excellent Winboard support. I think that their combined sales are in excess of the other commercial guis.
Winboard can be worked on and improved. Tim Mann's approval would be required I suppose. Updating is slow because when Tim mann started down this road I doubt very much he - or anyone else - could have envisioned that the gui designed as a front end for GnuChess (I believe I am right) would end up being the single most popular and supported gui/protocol in the existence of computerchess.
Winboard is ultra stable, tested and proven and easy on my computer resources. Tournaments can be run on it. UCI engines can be run on it thanks to Polyglot. When I want to have a match against Chesstiger I crank up the Chesspartner gui which directly supports WB.
Is Winboard perfect? No. Is Winboard the single most important computerchess protocol right now? I would say yes. Without hesitation.
What is Winboard's future? I would say pretty bright, what with all sorts of hobbyists, enthusiasts, freaks and ordinary people like me playing around with WB and WB compatible guis for years to come.
Everyone is welcome but may I ask that you do not diss Winboard with all the comments about its pre-historic appeal? It has provided many, many hours of immeasurable joy to myself and other members of this Forum.
It is a mark of respect that OT postings are responded to, generally with courtesy and helpful advice. I must ask that the posters refrain from commenting about WB as if it is dying or worse, ready for burial.
Problems in other guis are welcome BUT it would be appreciated that some warning be given in the subject line.
You must admit that Baron crashes is a far different message than Baron crashes in this particular gui when this particular setting is used. Of course, Richard will take it quite personally that his engine does not handle all guis perfectly but that is another whole different issue to the point being made here.

To be fair, the off topic nature of the comments was accepted but I am responding to some of the other issues which arose in that exchange.
WB rulez!!!!
The comments above are the property of the poster only and are not to be taken as representing the opinions of the management of this Forum or its other moderators.



CYA
Later.

Ps. Thanks Gunther Simon. We WB relics have got to stick together......

What's that? When I say relic I speak only for myself? Hahahahahahahahaha.

Roger,
Chessmaster has excellent WB support??? That's a new one.
I was talking about duplicates and I guess some of my opinions slipped inadvertantly. And now I'm accused of heresy by someone who was himself recently "abused" by wild accusations of another poster. Maybe Roger is taking out his frustration on me?
I expressed my opinion that there are guis out there competing with the WB gui and its tournament managers and utilities, that are more inclusive. This does not have anything to do with developing winboard engines. WB engines are increasing like rabbits. No problem there. Winboard engines can use either the WB gui or the other guis. Perhaps there is a degradation of performance using a WB engine with the other guis, but I have not seen anything proving that.
The reality is that the private company Chessbase went out and made its own GUI which happens to be darn good, and is very inclusive of all chess engines that I know of. Sure it has issues, but so do all guis. And many of the WB tournaments posted here use that GUI, the updated version btw. The monopolistic thing about the Chessbase gui is that it is the only gui that handles the chessbase engines. Those engines are generally accepted to be the most powerful chess engines on the market. That gives CB the advantage, sort of like Microsoft's advantage in having the OS. I can see people hating Chessbase like people hate Microsoft. They are the evil empire.
I could turn around and say I will not use the CB gui because they do not allow their engines to work in other guis. That's like saying I will not use MS Word or Excel because MS is a monopoly. I don't take that point of view. I like watching TheKing play Shredder. Or Fritz play List. I cannot do that in the WB gui.
A while ago Fabien came out with his Polyglot utility. That enlarged the base of engines that could go into the WB gui. More has to be done in this area of enlargement and inclusion. Maybe the answer is that the WB gui needs more adapters, or maybe a general update.
And one more thing. I'm glad you don't consider me a "relic" even though I'm probably older than you (b 42).

[Michael Scheidl]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Michael Scheidl at 10 July 2004 22:54:10:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post. geschrieben von:/posted by: Roger Brown at 10 July 2004 21:18:57:

(...) The problems one may encounter while using this gui are not directly on topic here. Those issues should be taken up with the respective support staff for the gui concerned.
Winboard's share of the computerchess market looks good to me for some years to come.
Chesspartner and Chessmaster have excellent Winboard support. I think that their combined sales are in excess of the other commercial guis.
would end up being the single most popular and supported gui/protocol in the existence of computerchess.
Winboard is ultra stable, tested and proven and easy on my computer resources. Tournaments can be run on it. UCI engines can be run on it thanks to Polyglot.
Is Winboard the single most important computerchess protocol right now? I would say yes. Without hesitation.
I must ask that the posters refrain from commenting about WB as if it is dying or worse, ready for burial.

As for the latest problem mentioned, duplicates, it is not GUI related when it's caused by the book(s) with too small variety. (Btw. using sets of predefined opening variants, like Nunn, Nommen, etc. can avoid duplicates, when the engine strength shall be tested, only.)
Actually there's no market for WinBoard, as it's free. So there's no proof if it is, as a GUI, competitive in a commercial sense. I'm fairly sure that it would not be competitive at all, because it lacks some basic features: It doesn't even have a state-of-the art notation window, no database functions, not a good engine window...
Probably, Chessmaster alone excesses the sales of the other chess playing programs. But CM is not a good argument for WinBoard, because without it's WB support, it probably would sell at least 97% of it's sales, still.
The question is how you define "popular and supported." From the view of the small group of chess programmers, it may be true that the WB protocol (or this and UCI) are most popular. But when it's about users (especially "normal" users), customers, sales, Chessmaster and Fritz are much bigger and compared to it, the WB GUI is virutally insignificant.
Also, there are (a.) computerchess freaks and OTOH (b.) chess players, like club players who use chess programs. I guess, from (b.) less than 5% have ever heard of WinBoard. It is a freak thing!
(I am a freak too, but we must not forget a world outside of computerchesss which I'm being told exists, somewhere...)
I know many computerchess experts, but AFAIK none of them is using WinBoard even (I always recommended it for WB-WB engine matches and tests of WB engines, as "most native" WB GUI), with few exceptions.
Yes, but it's too freaky. Even experienced users need to configure in an uncomfortable way (ini editing...), probably have two or three failing attempt before these add-ons run correctly, etc. Users want a GUI where everything is accessible via the menu and can be configured in standard Windows dialogues.
I doubt it. I think UCI is more important already - not by the number of engines, but by the quality/strength. The majority (if not all) of strong freeware engines supports UCI, in addition to WB or even exclusively.
But we should distinguish between WB the GUI, and WB the protocol. Thanks to Arena, CM. and other "fully equipped" GUIs, the WB protocol can stay alive - which I would doubt, if only the WB. GUI could run WB engines.
Also, using WB engines in Fritz via Wb2uci is very popular and is not to be underestimated, because a good share of all the tests of WB engines is being done like that (my impression).
The protocol is very alive but not the GUI. An example: Being a computerchess enthusiast, I have a new computer since, I think March 2004. So far, I have installed "only" four GUIs again:
ChessBase 7.0,
Fritz the GUI (not Fritz the Cat ),
and Arena.
(and recently a special version of Shredder Classic because it was free with a magazine CD)
I did not miss WinBoard yet. - I do a lot of positon tests, and some matches, with WB and UCI engines in Arena now, which is much more user friendly.
Regards,
Mike Scheidl

[Roger Brown]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Roger Brown at 10 July 2004 23:57:46:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: OT (response). geschrieben von:/posted by: Norm Pollock at 10 July 2004 22:05:34:

Roger,
Chessmaster has excellent WB support??? That's a new one.
I was talking about duplicates and I guess some of my opinions slipped inadvertantly. And now I'm accused of heresy by someone who was himself recently "abused" by wild accusations of another poster. Maybe Roger is taking out his frustration on me?
I expressed my opinion that there are guis out there competing with the WB gui and its tournament managers and utilities, that are more inclusive. This does not have anything to do with developing winboard engines. WB engines are increasing like rabbits. No problem there. Winboard engines can use either the WB gui or the other guis. Perhaps there is a degradation of performance using a WB engine with the other guis, but I have not seen anything proving that.
The reality is that the private company Chessbase went out and made its own GUI which happens to be darn good, and is very inclusive of all chess engines that I know of. Sure it has issues, but so do all guis.
I could turn around and say I will not use the CB gui because they do not allow their engines to work in other guis. That's like saying I will not use MS Word or Excel because MS is a monopoly. I don't take that point of view. I like watching TheKing play Shredder. Or Fritz play List. I cannot do that in the WB gui.
A while ago Fabien came out with his Polyglot utility. That enlarged the base of engines that could go into the WB gui. More has to be done in this area of enlargement and inclusion. Maybe the answer is that the WB gui needs more adapters, or maybe a general update.
And one more thing. I'm glad you don't consider me a "relic" even though I'm probably older than you (b 42).

Hmmm, I am unsure of what measures we are using to assess this so I am perfectly willing to concede that you may have encountered issues that I have not. Why do you disagree?

Norm, where have I accused you of heresy? You expressed a perspective, that WB was in the process of becoming irrelevant as far as recent professional and amateur computerchess developments are concerned. I provided evidence to the contrary precisely because I did not to simply render my opinion.
The matter you refer to was dealt with to the satisfaction of both parties so I am not even going there....
I have no frustration in me and I assure you, I have not taken out any on you. I say this for the record:
Where I have left you feeling as though I have accused or vented at you, I apologise sincerely and without reservation. Such was not my intent. I do not believe that a careful reading of my post could lead you to the conclusion that I intended to accuse etc..
Here we slightly part company. There has been more than one post about the performance issues in the chessbase gui. One of them centers on the 1 mb hash issue noted by Gemuh et al. Another of them is supposed to be a command sent with each move that causes the engine to virtually start from scratch. I am a patzer so perhaps someone could explain this one better than me.


I quote from my own post:

The gui in particular is a professional one with several desirable features. I personally own several versions.

So it would seem we agree here as well....



And many of the WB tournaments posted here use that GUI, the updated version btw. The monopolistic thing about the Chessbase gui is that it is the only gui that handles the chessbase engines. Those engines are generally accepted to be the most powerful chess engines on the market. That gives CB the advantage, sort of like Microsoft's advantage in having the OS. I can see people hating Chessbase like people hate Microsoft. They are the evil empire.
Uh, I hope that you realise that here you have gone to a totally different place. I love my Windows OS. Without apology. No, I do not want the Linux and other fans out there on my case. I am a Windows fan. so there. I just quoted where I have purchased several chessbase products - I even manage to get special prices but that's another story - so where do you get it that I hate chesbase? Are they an evil empire? No. Shredder 5.32, Shredder 6, Junior 7, Hiarcs 9......man, I have a lot of evil hanging over my head here....

No evil empires here.



Based on its play, I may save up the coins for the newest version of Junior.

This I think is the crux of the matter. I have no objection to whatever combination you desire to use on your machine. Use them all. I defend your right so to do. Re-read the post. What I will always object to are posts here that potray Winboard as an irrelevant gui. It is not. Love Chessbase or not. Love Winboard or not. Hate them all. This is the WB Forum.
I hope that does not come across as any sort of attack.
Fritz and friends are a the top of the software engine hierarchy. I can say that without a hint of ill-will or effort. That does not mean that the gui allows WB engines to compete on an equal footing. Now that is not an evil thing but when non-Wb guis have issues then posts here should be careful in what they potray and should not veer too far off the topic.
You agreed with that position if I recall correctly.


I think Polyglot is a fantastic invention and Fabien is some sort of genius. It is crazy to have Shredder in Winboard! Who would have thought it...

I indicated that unlike several other free and commercial guis, the source for Winboard is readily available. Tim Mann has decided to pursue other interests, not realising that a casual hobby would explode into this WB scene.
For the record:

I am not anti-chessbase or anti-this or that. I support them with my money which is the ultimate form of support.


Naaah, relic in this context was a personal remark directed at Gunther...and myself too. Age is not the primary consideration here. What does a number have to do with anything? As for my age......sigh.

Later.

[Roger Brown]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Roger Brown at 11 July 2004 00:35:45:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Re: Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post. geschrieben von:/posted by: Michael Scheidl at 10 July 2004 22:54:10:

Actually there's no market for WinBoard, as it's free. So there's no proof if it is, as a GUI, competitive in a commercial sense. I'm fairly sure that it would not be competitive at all, because it lacks some basic features: It doesn't even have a state-of-the art notation window, no database functions, not a good engine window...
Probably, Chessmaster alone excesses the sales of the other chess playing programs. But CM is not a good argument for WinBoard, because without it's WB support, it probably would sell at least 97% of it's sales, still.
The question is how you define "popular and supported." From the view of the small group of chess programmers, it may be true that the WB protocol (or this and UCI) are most popular. But when it's about users (especially "normal" users), customers, sales, Chessmaster and Fritz are much bigger and compared to it, the WB GUI is virutally insignificant.
Also, there are (a.) computerchess freaks and OTOH (b.) chess players, like club players who use chess programs. I guess, from (b.) less than 5% have ever heard of WinBoard. It is a freak thing!
(I am a freak too, but we must not forget a world outside of computerchesss which I'm being told exists, somewhere...)
Yes, but it's too freaky. Even experienced users need to configure in an uncomfortable way (ini editing...), probably have two or three failing attempt before these add-ons run correctly, etc. Users want a GUI where everything is accessible via the menu and can be configured in standard Windows dialogues.
I doubt it. I think UCI is more important already - not by the number of engines, but by the quality/strength. The majority (if not all) of strong freeware engines supports UCI, in addition to WB or even exclusively.
But we should distinguish between WB the GUI, and WB the protocol. Thanks to Arena, CM. and other "fully equipped" GUIs, the WB protocol can stay alive - which I would doubt, if only the WB. GUI could run WB engines.
ChessBase 7.0,
Fritz the GUI (not Fritz the Cat ),
and Arena.
(and recently a special version of Shredder Classic because it was free with a magazine CD)
I did not miss WinBoard yet. - I do a lot of positon tests, and some matches, with WB and UCI engines in Arena now, which is much more user friendly.

My remark about market share was in tongue in cheek, as was the original poster I was responding to. Winboard lacks a ton of features no question about it. It is not even pretty. It is not sexy at all. Still the darn thing just continues to hang around and it supports the most amateur and professional chess engines....making it the most popular protocol and gui.
Sigh, Michael you know better than this....you know that I was not claiming that if Chessmaster was to drop their WB support and make the King a non-WB engine that their sales would plummet.
I was simply pointing out two popular guis that supported Winboard engines which indirectly helps to enhance the popularity of the gui.


Well here I have to make the same point again. Hmmm, that is bad english. Here, where you are now, is the Winboard Forum. You are free to not use Winboard all you like. I defend your right to use the gui of your choice.
This is the Winboard Forum. To the odd sorts gathered here, Winboard is very significant. Code is discussed here. Competitions are held here. Clones are discovered and shredded here. The Winboard freaks hang out here. All we ask is that if you hold the view that Winboard is insignificant to a group important to your competitions etc. that you post that elsewhere.
There are tons of available fora.
Without apology we are freaks here.

I beg your pardon!!! There is no such place!



Perhaps they do. Perhaps you are totally correct. This is not their forum however. Until Winboard is developed in that direction there are other guis and other fora to post their issues, problems etc.
Y'know, for all the talking down directed at Winboard I have not heard once that this Forum has supplied tons of useful ideas to the non-WB folk - free of charge. This is a freaky place but it seems to attract everybody. Why is that?
I think one reason is that here is where knowledge is shared. Guis with closed sources do not contribute to the spread of ideas. You have a black box and you either plug into it correctly or not. Here, you can rip the box apart. Some persons value that in and of itself.


It is an opinion. You are certainly entitled to hold it.


Really? Again this is your opinion and you are entitled to hold onto it.

An example: Being a computerchess enthusiast, I have a new computer since, I think March 2004. So far, I have installed "only" four GUIs again:

Do as you wish. It is your machine. I think the message is a simple one. Perhaps I am making it too difficult. This is the WB Forum. I have the guis (and more) you mentioned. Arena is more friendly to the user and who knows, it may become the number one gui choice soon - if it is not already. Arena is not off-topic here as it explicitly supports the WB protocol.
They do have a Forum elsewhere so even while your posts would be appreciated here, they might be in a better position to offer assistance with any issues you might encounter with that sexy gui.
In this Forum, Winboard is the topic. A post about X (non-WB engine in non-WB gui of your choice) would be off-topic here. You can post almost anywhere else and you should.
Can you imagine any other Forum dedicated to another protocol (say UCI), providing the level of over-all coverage this one does?

Winboard is irrelevant to you. Fine. Just post that somewhere else.

I am not being rude so please do not read that into it.
Thanks for your usual erudite contribution. You write too little here incidentally, except to make an announcement now and again. How about your various tests? Any exciting possibilities towards developing a comprehensive test suite for engines?

Later.

[Michael Scheidl]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Michael Scheidl at 11 July 2004 02:25:21:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Re: Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post. geschrieben von:/posted by: Roger Brown at 11 July 2004 00:35:45:

Winboard is irrelevant to you. Fine. Just post that somewhere else.
(...) How about your various tests? Any exciting possibilities towards developing a comprehensive test suite for engines?

I snipped a lot. - To put it as short as possible : What confuses me a bit is, that you seem to suggest (repeatedly) that I should post elsewhere. Usually I don't talk other GUIs here, anyway. I just responded to your posting you indicate yourself as o.t. You brought the topic up "WinBoard and other GUIs", not me You cannot blame me when you start an o.t. thread and I reply to it. I thought that was the intention.
Of course I tried to present an overall view from "beyond the nutshell;" I know that this is the WinBoard forum and we don't need to discuss obvious things like WinBoard being a very popular GUI here. When you are sure that it's more popular than any other GUI still (among WB engine fans), ok, it wouldn't seem unnatural to me. I'm much more interested in the WB engines though (and in engines in general).
My Quicktest results have recently been updated, including new results for many WB (or WB/UCI) engines:
http://members.aon.at/computerschach/quick/quicke.htm (description)
http://members.aon.at/computerschach/quick/quickxls.zip (results, XLS)
Among the latest tested engines are Tao 5.6, Delfi 4.5, Gothmog 0.4.8, WildCat 4, Jonny 2.62...
Tao 5.6 performed better than Chess Tiger 14. The best Freeware result so far has had Ruffian 1.0.0 (in WB 4.2.6 ), ranking between Hiarcs 7.32 and Shredder 7.SE.
(The test is more or less limited to tactics only.)
Since the result of WildCat 4 was also quite good (not much behind Shredder 5.32, between LiGo 3.6 and Delfi 4.4), I have recommended it as a candidate for rating lists where I hope it will appear soon. One test is currently running:
http://www.computerschach.de/rangliste/
Regards,
Mike Scheidl

[Roger Brown]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Roger Brown at 11 July 2004 04:27:43:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Re: Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post. geschrieben von:/posted by: Michael Scheidl at 11 July 2004 02:25:21:

I snipped a lot. - To put it as short as possible : What confuses me a bit is, that you seem to suggest (repeatedly) that I should post elsewhere. Usually I don't talk other GUIs here, anyway. I just responded to your posting you indicate yourself as o.t. You brought the topic up "WinBoard and other GUIs", not me You cannot blame me when you start an o.t. thread and I reply to it. I thought that was the intention.
Of course I tried to present an overall view from "beyond the nutshell;" I know that this is the WinBoard forum and we don't need to discuss obvious things like WinBoard being a very popular GUI here. When you are sure that it's more popular than any other GUI still (among WB engine fans), ok, it wouldn't seem unnatural to me. I'm much more interested in the WB engines though (and in engines in general).
My Quicktest results have recently been updated, including new results for many WB (or WB/UCI) engines:
http://members.aon.at/computerschach/quick/quicke.htm (description)
http://members.aon.at/computerschach/quick/quickxls.zip (results, XLS)
Among the latest tested engines are Tao 5.6, Delfi 4.5, Gothmog 0.4.8, WildCat 4, Jonny 2.62...
Tao 5.6 performed better than Chess Tiger 14. The best Freeware result so far has had Ruffian 1.0.0 (in WB 4.2.6 ), ranking between Hiarcs 7.32 and Shredder 7.SE.
(The test is more or less limited to tactics only.)
Since the result of WildCat 4 was also quite good (not much behind Shredder 5.32, between LiGo 3.6 and Delfi 4.4), I have recommended it as a candidate for rating lists where I hope it will appear soon. One test is currently running:
http://www.computerschach.de/rangliste/
Regards,
Mike Scheidl

It was. Thanks for contributing.



Fair enough...


Any plans to expand the positions? 24 is on the slim side, statistically speaking. I suppose time is an issue....

Interesting. I expected Gothmog to figure higher in a tactical test suite.

Feel free to keep us posted on the results.

Thanks again for your contributions and do not be such a stranger. Engine data is always good data. Or do I have to start another OT thread to get you back here?



Later.

[Michael Scheidl]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Michael Scheidl at 11 July 2004 05:03:06:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Re: Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post. geschrieben von:/posted by: Roger Brown at 11 July 2004 04:27:43:

Any plans to expand the positions? 24 is on the slim side, statistically speaking.
I suppose time is an issue....
Thanks again for your contributions and do not be such a stranger. Engine data is always good data. Or do I have to start another OT thread to get you back here?

Not currently, but these 24 are very carfully selected (which can hopefully contradict statistical uncertainty). From the 24, 22 stood the "test of time" so far, while #5 and #10 are not perfect in a testing sense, unfortunately (but still useable, IOW not incorrect).
Not really... but I wasn't busy searching for new positions lately. Testing time is only 1 min./pos. in the Quicktest.
There's a large bandwidth of "medium" results, among these Gothmog, which means many engines seem more or less equal tactically (but are quite different in overall strength).
Thanks; I'll try to. I was lazy doing matches or tournaments during the last few month. The only one was experimental: 4 short predefined mainstream opening variants, but own engine books (or a mainbook) at the same time:
Vierkampf  2004
.
                         1        2        3        4        
1   Thinker 4.6b         ******** 01½½11½½ 0½1011½1 11½1½½½0  15.0/24
2   WildCat 4            10½½00½½ ******** ½½1001½1 1½11½110  13.5/24  141.75
3   Shredder Classic/ct  1½0100½0 ½½0110½0 ******** 11101111  13.5/24  134.25
4   Gothmog 0.4.8        00½0½½½1 0½00½001 00010000 ********   6.0/24
(typical depth was ~10 plies, no ponder)
That was the good impression from WildCat 4, in addition to the QT. result.
Regards,
Mike

[Norm Pollock]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Norm Pollock at 11 July 2004 14:21:34:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Re: OT (response). geschrieben von:/posted by: Roger Brown at 10 July 2004 23:57:46:

So where do we go from here? Does the WBF encourage/discourage/ban discussion of non-WB guis used by WB engines? Mods? Volker?

[Volker Pittlik]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Volker Pittlik at 11 July 2004 16:42:18:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Re: OT (response). geschrieben von:/posted by: Norm Pollock at 11 July 2004 14:21:34:

So where do we go from here? Does the WBF encourage/discourage/ban discussion of non-WB guis used by WB engines? Mods? Volker?

I was afraid to be asked but let me try.
There are a lot of different aspects in this two threads:
http://www.f11.parsimony.net/forum16635 ... /68480.htm and
http://www.f11.parsimony.net/forum16635 ... /68448.htm.
From my point of view the main question is: "What are Winboard and related
topics"? Some months ago I wrote in a mail to the other moderators I have problems to give a
clear definition. I don't think there is a sharp line. As Dieter already
wrote also a test made in a non-WB gui can tell us something about the
participating engines.
From my point of view the non-WB related messages are not a big problem for
this forum because they aren't posted so much. If I had a problem with
tournaments/duplicate games or whatever with my Fritz/Chessmaster/...
or whatever I would try to get support from the companies, the CSS or CCC
forum. BTW: I never noticed a "duplicate game problem" in my or other
peoples tournaments .
But also if your posting were (*1) off-topic I don't see a reason to get
angry or offensive. I hope we still can discuss here in mutual respect for
each other. It would be different if the Fritz or other off-topic stuff
would overbalance the other topics.
I suggest everyone to be aware that this is a Winboard related forum. It's
possibly more likely to get usefull answers to a question related to
another gui if the question is asked somewhere else. OTOH I think if
someone thinks a posting is off-topic I suggest to ignore it or to contact us the
moderators.
If something is going totally out of hand we are still able to
intervene also without notification by someone else.
---- End of my attempt to pour oil on troubled water. ------
But there are some aspects in the threads I would like to comment from
the point of view of a user and upcoming engine author.
The background is that I recently managed it to severely damage my windows
operating system by installing software using Microsoft's Windows update
system. Therefore I tested several Linux evaluation CDs with special
attention of the chess stuff.
I suggest to keep in mind Xboard/Winboard is GPLed open source software.
Under some conditions everyone is free to make changes or improvements to
it. There has been some criticism of Winboard. Some don't like the gui,
others try to convince us the protocol is "outdated" whatever that should
mean. Some even believe the playing strength of a program depends on the
communication protocol.
Compared to the search and the evaluation the communication with the gui is
a trivial and not very complicated part of a chess program (at least in my
engine). I'm implementing both xboard an UCI and I'm quite sure I will call
exactly the same search within both operation modes. Obviously UCI provides
more information but as if my memory serves me right Daniel Mehrmann is
working on the UCI support.
Then there are some complaints about the gui and all the configuration
files. I think this is not a poblem of the protocol. Take a look at Arena,
Scid or Jose to see that connecting an engine to a gui can be done in a
"point-and-click" manner. At least Scid is faster and more stable for my
purposes than commercial products. (I don't want to critizise Jose. The gui is
amazing IMO. I just have to notice that it is not working anymore here -
thank you Windows-Update.)
I was amazed by the Knights chess interface http://knights-chess.com/index.php.
It offers a lot of different chessboards and piece sets, login to ICSs and
- it starts to support UCI too! All for free and coming with source
code.
All that is presented in a decent manner without cups, read protection,
golden passwords, user bashing, name-calling, flame threads and all the
other profiling crap, under which the image of another great windows-only
gui is suffering.
I understand companies keep their communication protocols secret to protect
their investments. Also I don't expect the source code of Shredder or The
King will ever be published. I also don't dispute the strongest programs
are to find among the commercials. But the free engines are strong enough for
me. And they have been at the time I started to get interested in computer
chess when I had a 80 MHz 486.
To defame the xboard protocol looks simply stupid to me. From my point
of view it seems some don't know what they are talking about, others tell
something although they know better. Don't want to decide what is worse.
Enough for a sunday...
Regards
Volker

P.S.: *1 I hope this is grammatically correct. The conditional sentences are most
difficult for me.

[Dann Corbit]

Geschrieben von:/Posted by: Dann Corbit at 12 July 2004 21:10:51:
Als Antwort auf:/In reply to: Re: Off Topic...some thoughts. Longish post. geschrieben von:/posted by: Michael Scheidl at 11 July 2004 02:25:21:

Winboard is irrelevant to you. Fine. Just post that somewhere else.
(...) How about your various tests? Any exciting possibilities towards developing a comprehensive test suite for engines?

I snipped a lot. - To put it as short as possible : What confuses me a bit is, that you seem to suggest (repeatedly) that I should post elsewhere. Usually I don't talk other GUIs here, anyway. I just responded to your posting you indicate yourself as o.t. You brought the topic up "WinBoard and other GUIs", not me You cannot blame me when you start an o.t. thread and I reply to it. I thought that was the intention.
Of course I tried to present an overall view from "beyond the nutshell;" I know that this is the WinBoard forum and we don't need to discuss obvious things like WinBoard being a very popular GUI here. When you are sure that it's more popular than any other GUI still (among WB engine fans), ok, it wouldn't seem unnatural to me. I'm much more interested in the WB engines though (and in engines in general).
My Quicktest results have recently been updated, including new results for many WB (or WB/UCI) engines:
http://members.aon.at/computerschach/quick/quicke.htm (description)
http://members.aon.at/computerschach/quick/quickxls.zip (results, XLS)
Among the latest tested engines are Tao 5.6, Delfi 4.5, Gothmog 0.4.8, WildCat 4, Jonny 2.62...
Tao 5.6 performed better than Chess Tiger 14. The best Freeware result so far has had Ruffian 1.0.0 (in WB 4.2.6 ), ranking between Hiarcs 7.32 and Shredder 7.SE.
(The test is more or less limited to tactics only.)
Since the result of WildCat 4 was also quite good (not much behind Shredder 5.32, between LiGo 3.6 and Delfi 4.4), I have recommended it as a candidate for rating lists where I hope it will appear soon. One test is currently running:
http://www.computerschach.de/rangliste/
Regards,
Mike Scheidl

What are S.Hund and G98?



my ftp site {remove http:// unless you like error messages}