WB engines under Shredder Classic

[Daniel Shawul]

Hi
It seems that Winboard engines under shredder do not understand
*conventional* time control correctly.
I tested scorpio in 40 moves in 5 minutes time control, ponder off,
own book, and it fails in time always.
The problem is that Shredder classic sends the level command
every time a new move is made!
Winboard/Arena send level command only when a new game is started. This completely messes up time management of scorpio.
For example
level 20 4:30 0
level 19 4:13 0
level 18 3:59 0 etc
If you think this is probably scorpio's problem , I tested
crafty and it acts "weirder" than scorpio.
For each move shredder sends, crafty produces separte logfile,
game record,book learn and other files. Obviously crafty is thinking a new game is starting because of this level command.
Any help appreciated.
Daniel

[Uri Blass]

I see no reason to send level command after every move but I also see no reason to assume a new game is started after getting the level command.

If a program suffers from getting the level command then it is something that should be fixed by the programmer.

Uri

[Daniel Shawul]

The problem is that Winboard does not supports only one type of time control.
taken form Protocol page
"
In conventional clock mode, every time control period is the same. That is, if the time control is 40 moves in 5 minutes, then after each side has made 40 moves, they each get an additional 5 minutes, and so on, ad infinitum. At some future time it would be nice to support a series of distinct time controls. This is very low on my personal priority list, but code donations to the xboard project are accepted, so feel free to take a swing at it. I suggest you talk to me first, though.
"
So sending level command repeatedly to winboard engines is basically wrong.

winboard sends
move
time and otime for backward compatibility

BTW have you tried Movie in shredder?
regards
daniel

[Daniel Shawul]

I meant to say "supports only one type of time control"

Code: Select all

The problem is that Winboard does not supports only one type of time control.
taken form Protocol page

[Uri Blass]

The problem is that Winboard does not supports only one type of time control.
taken form Protocol page
"
In conventional clock mode, every time control period is the same. That is, if the time control is 40 moves in 5 minutes, then after each side has made 40 moves, they each get an additional 5 minutes, and so on, ad infinitum. At some future time it would be nice to support a series of distinct time controls. This is very low on my personal priority list, but code donations to the xboard project are accepted, so feel free to take a swing at it. I suggest you talk to me first, though.
"
So sending level command repeatedly to winboard engines is basically wrong.

winboard sends
move
time and otime for backward compatibility

BTW have you tried Movie in shredder?
regards
daniel

I usually use it under winboard and I did only few games under shredder and I am not sure what type of time control I used at that time.

When thinking about it then if I understand my code correctly and have no bugs getting time control every move may break the time management of movei

The problem is that if movei gets
level 21 4:30 0 it assumes that it has 4:30 minutes for the first 21 moves and also for moves 22-42 and for moves 43-63 so after 19 moves it may assume wrong that it has 4:30 for moves 20-21 and 4:30 for moves 22-42

It will still not lose on time because of it and it probably will use also less than half of the time because it calculates the time that it needs to use when it has 2 moves for 4:30 or 23 moves for 9 minutes or 45 moves for 13:30 minutes or... and choose the minimal time as a target time.

Uri

[Daniel Shawul]

It depends on how you allocate time.
For scorpio for example, i calculate moves left in time control based
on the level command sent. And this messes up the time allocation heavly and it can never NOT fail in time.
The effect seems different for different winboard engines.
Crafty seems not losing on time despite the weird behaviour.
daniel

[Anonymous]

Surely my engine Chiron would not allocate correctly the time because I (as many others I think) use the informations about the time control and the variable game_ply (plies from the beginning of the game) to allocate the time for the search.


---
UAF

[Uri Blass]

It is the same for movei that use the ply of the game as I explained earlier

Movei will probably not lose on time because of that problem but it is going to change it's time management.

Uri

[Daniel Shawul]

I think i have figured out the problem now.
The problem is with the WB2UCI adapter that comes with Shredder.
It sure isn't the same adaptor as OddGunnar malin's.
The size of shredder's adapter is 96kb while the other is 260kb.
Besides that the commands sent to engines are different.
I installed scorpio as a "UCI engine" using OddGunnar's wb2uci, and
it now works perfect.
This is the commands scorpio recieved

Code: Select all

xboard
protover 2
accepted sigint
accepted sigterm
accepted setboard
accepted draw
accepted done
accepted colors
accepted name
accepted myname
new
level 0 5 0
post
hard
easy
force
new
post
hard
easy
level 40 4 0
force
e2e4
c7c5
g1f3
d7d6
d2d4
c5d4
f3d4
g8f6
b1c3
a7a6
c1e3
e7e5
d4b3
f8e7
f2f3
c8e6
d1d2
h7h5
time 29574
otim 29573
go
time 29523
otim 28957
e8g8
time 28542
otim 28321
b8d7
time 27559
otim 27396
f6d5
quit


compare this with shredder's wb2uci adapter

Code: Select all

xboard
post
hard
easy
easy
new
force
d2d4
d7d5
c2c4
e7e6
b1c3
c7c6
e2e3
g8f6
g1f3
b8d7
f1d3
d5c4
d3c4
b7b5
c4d3
c8b7
e1g1
a7a6
e3e4
c6c5
d4d5
d8c7
level 29 4:55 0
time 29490
otim 29495
white
go
new
force
d2d4
d7d5
c2c4
e7e6
b1c3
c7c6
e2e3
g8f6
g1f3
b8d7
f1d3
d5c4
d3c4
b7b5
c4d3
c8b7
e1g1
a7a6
e3e4
c6c5
d4d5
d8c7
d5e6
f7e6
level 28 4:55 0
time 29442
otim 29440
white
go
new
force
d2d4
d7d5
c2c4
e7e6
b1c3
c7c6
e2e3
g8f6
g1f3
b8d7
f1d3
d5c4
d3c4
b7b5
c4d3
c8b7
e1g1
a7a6
e3e4
c6c5
d4d5
d8c7
d5e6
f7e6
d3c2
c5c4
level 27 4:54 0
time 29395
otim 29393
white
go
new
force
d2d4
d7d5
c2c4
e7e6
b1c3
c7c6
e2e3
g8f6
g1f3
b8d7
f1d3
d5c4
d3c4
b7b5
c4d3
c8b7
e1g1
a7a6
e3e4
c6c5
d4d5
d8c7
d5e6
f7e6
d3c2
c5c4
d1e2
f8d6
level 26 4:54 0
time 29347
otim 29343
white
go
new
force
d2d4
d7d5
c2c4
e7e6
b1c3
c7c6
e2e3
g8f6
g1f3
b8d7
f1d3
d5c4
d3c4
b7b5
c4d3
c8b7
e1g1
a7a6
e3e4
c6c5
d4d5
d8c7
d5e6
f7e6
d3c2
c5c4
d1e2
f8d6
f3g5
d7c5
level 25 4:53 0
time 29287
otim 29290
white
go
new
force
d2d4
d7d5
c2c4
e7e6
b1c3
c7c6
e2e3
g8f6
g1f3
b8d7
f1d3
d5c4
d3c4
b7b5
c4d3
c8b7
e1g1
a7a6
e3e4
c6c5
d4d5
d8c7
d5e6
f7e6
d3c2
c5c4
d1e2
f8d6
f3g5
d7c5
f2f4
h7h6


I think shredder's adapter sends commands in a UCI style.
New time control and all moves made are sent on every postiotion.
The *new* command is also sent which explains crafty's weird behaviour.

I am sure that there are many winboard engines do not work properly with shredder's adapter if it sends commands like this.
Daniel

[Guenther Simon]

I think i have figured out the problem now.
The problem is with the WB2UCI adapter that comes with Shredder.
It sure isn't the same adaptor as OddGunnar malin's.
The size of shredder's adapter is 96kb while the other is 260kb.
Besides that the commands sent to engines are different.
I installed scorpio as a "UCI engine" using OddGunnar's wb2uci, and
it now works perfect.

Hi Daniel,

I thought you knew this already before, but it seems you did not
understand my mail.
If you look again in my last mail you'll see this sentence:
*Have you tried Scorpio as
WB2UCI too under Shredder BTW? I guess most users rely on this
much more meanwhile.*

Of course I meant Odds adapter here and assumed you knew that
Shredder uses an own crappy and old adapter(2000) as buggy as the
CB WB adapters.(There is a lot to read about the malfunctions of
those old adapters in the old WB forum and at Thomas Mayers
old site) Actually CB and also SMK never cared about fixing the bugs
in their adapters and later gave up at all. Thanks god Odd Gunnar
later developed a working WB2UCI aadapter otherwise we had
the situation that still all WB programs would be severly handicapped
under those GUIs(except implementing workarounds for each GUI
of course after lots of debugging).

Best regards,
Guenther

[Daniel Shawul]

Hi Daniel,

I thought you knew this already before, but it seems you did not
understand my mail.
If you look again in my last mail you'll see this sentence:
*Have you tried Scorpio as
WB2UCI too under Shredder BTW? I guess most users rely on this
much more meanwhile.*

Of course I meant Odds adapter here and assumed you knew that
Shredder uses an own crappy and old adapter(2000) as buggy as the
CB WB adapters.(There is a lot to read about the malfunctions of
those old adapters in the old WB forum and at Thomas Mayers
old site) Actually CB and also SMK never cared about fixing the bugs
in their adapters and later gave up at all. Thanks god Odd Gunnar
later developed a working WB2UCI aadapter otherwise we had
the situation that still all WB programs would be severly handicapped
under those GUIs(except implementing workarounds for each GUI
of course after lots of debugging).

Best regards,
Guenther

Hi Gunther
I misunderstood your statement because i thought shredder
was using the common adapter. I thought noone would go to the trouble of writing a new adapter when there is already one.
That is what Rebel, Chessmaster and others use.

I didnot know about the problem until yesterday. Ofcourse experienced testers like you may know about it.(thats why i emailed you:)).
But i doubt a newbie tester does. One would think all is well when Shredder says "Winboard engines is installed successfully".

best wishes
daniel

[Norm Pollock]

Very interesting thread.

Malin's site is

http://home.online.no/~malin/sjakk/Wb2Uci/

and the downloads are at

http://home.online.no/~malin/sjakk/Wb2Uci/#download

The official version is dated 2002. Since then there have been 21 beta versions. The latest from June 2005.