Time clock for engines

[ChessDude]

Hi there,
New here, and i need some help please.

Whenever i play two machines against each other, they never seem to lose on time. The time always resets, to what it was before and it's like they're starting over.

Also, when i play an engine i always lose on time but the engine's time just resets and it keeps going.

How can i set the times for the engine(s) so they can also lose on time ?

thanks
ChessDude

[H.G.Muller]

What time-control mode are you using? (Classical, incremental, sudden-death, fixed time per move?) What you describe sounds like fixed time per move, and it is normal that the engine then gets its clock reset to the specified time every time its turn comes up. That is what 'fixed time per move' means. You get a certain time, and if you move before it expires, it is OK. Next move starts with a clean slate.

Not that this matters much: engines could lose on time in an time-control mode. That only requires them to let the clock count down past zero, and whether their clock would then have been reset on the next move, or not, is quite immaterial, as there will be no next move once they lost. But of course engines are programmed not to lose, neither by letting themselves be checkmated, nor by exceding time.

[ChessDude]

hi thanks for the reply.
how do i check which time control mode i'm using ? I checked the winboard.ini file, but cannot seem to see where it's indicated. I'm definetly not using incremental as my ini file is set to -1.

[H.G.Muller]

In the Options -> Time Control menu dialog you should be able to see which TC-mode radio-button is ticked. In the ini file it is a bit awkward to see, because it depends on a number of options: if /st has a non-zero value it is fixed time per move, then if /inc >= 0 it is incremental or sudden-death, and only if neither is the case it is classical, and /mps is used. All the options have long names as well, (/searchTime etc.) and I am not sure whether the long or short names are used for saving in the ini file.