Francesca M.A.D v0.15 released

[silentshark]

Hi all,

a new update of my chess playing program, Francesca, is available from my website, www.silentshark.co.uk

from the readme:

ok, a few changes, lots of testing, and about a 30 ELO improvement I hope. LMR improvements (e.g. doing LMR at the root of the tree, varying reduction according to depth, and moves made). Some eval tweaks (things like greater bonus for outposts).. what else? Experimental "force" mode for Winboard/ Arena (only tested under Arena). Again, three different versions using varying amounts of RAM. diet.exe - approx 16Mb, mad.exe - approx 128Mb, lardy.exe - approx 1Gb.

Have fun, any queries, results etc, post them here or feel free to PM me.

As I have posted before, my engine is no longer competitive with the monsters at the top of the leaderboard. But so what? So long as I find it fun, and she plays some interesting and fun chess, then that's fine with me..



By the way, I tried a 64 bit compile, but found things wen slower?! Any hints on data types I should use (or avoid) to make things run good on 64 bit? My main PC runs an AMD II X4 635, and I use visual studio 10 for compiles for computer chess.

[Kirill Kryukov]

Thanks Tom! Especially for the "force" command! Added to my testing queue.

[silentshark]

Thanks Tom! Especially for the "force" command! Added to my testing queue.

Well, I hope the "force" command works ok for you, testing hasn't been very extensive

[Werner]

Thanks Tom,
...
I have 2 wishes for next version:
- edit mode, so I can start eng-eng match from a startposition
- able to use a GUI book, so I can use the same book for both engines in an eng-eng match

And I have a question: 128 MB hash is default and cannot be changed ?

best wishes
Werner, CEGT Team

[Jamal Bubker]

Thank you Tom for this kind release !

[silentshark]

Thanks Tom,
...
I have 2 wishes for next version:
- edit mode, so I can start eng-eng match from a startposition
- able to use a GUI book, so I can use the same book for both engines in an eng-eng match

And I have a question: 128 MB hash is default and cannot be changed ?

best wishes
Werner, CEGT Team

Hi Werner,

Re: hash size, there are three versions of the program which run with different hash sizes

diet.exe - 16Mb hash
mad.exe - 128Mb hash (default)
lardy.exe - 1Gb hash

Regards,
Tom

[Werner]

Thanks Tom,
one little problem is nearly solved:

Using startpositions like here works:
[Event "SedatChess-Top 10"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "B12:Caro Kann"]
[Black "Modern Line"]
[Result "*"]
[ECO "B12"]
[PlyCount "9"]
[EventDate "2008.04.17"]
[Source "Sedat Canbaz"]
[SourceDate "2008.04.17"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. Be2 *

I only have to avoid startpositions like this one:

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Adams, Topalov"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[ECO "B76"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r1bq1rk1/pp2ppbp/2np1np1/8/3NP3/2N1BP2/PPPQ2PP/R3KB1R w KQ - 0 9"]
[PlyCount "0"]

The only small problem is: Francesca has a book move after this position. But this is seldom after 8 moves.

[silentshark]

Thanks Tom,
one little problem is nearly solved:

Using startpositions like here works:
[Event "SedatChess-Top 10"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "B12:Caro Kann"]
[Black "Modern Line"]
[Result "*"]
[ECO "B12"]
[PlyCount "9"]
[EventDate "2008.04.17"]
[Source "Sedat Canbaz"]
[SourceDate "2008.04.17"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. Be2 *

I only have to avoid startpositions like this one:

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Adams, Topalov"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[ECO "B76"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r1bq1rk1/pp2ppbp/2np1np1/8/3NP3/2N1BP2/PPPQ2PP/R3KB1R w KQ - 0 9"]
[PlyCount "0"]

The only small problem is: Francesca has a book move after this position. But this is seldom after 8 moves.

ok, that makes sense. The first approach works (I guess Arena or similar is using the "force" command). The second one doesn't work, because I haven't implemented the setup-position-from-FEN command.

PS in the first instance, you are right, Francesca will still try to use her book. You can stop this be (temporarily) renaming the book files (franbook.w and franbook.b). A bit of a hack, but there we go.

[Dann Corbit]

Hi all,

a new update of my chess playing program, Francesca, is available from my website, www.silentshark.co.uk

from the readme:

ok, a few changes, lots of testing, and about a 30 ELO improvement I hope. LMR improvements (e.g. doing LMR at the root of the tree, varying reduction according to depth, and moves made). Some eval tweaks (things like greater bonus for outposts).. what else? Experimental "force" mode for Winboard/ Arena (only tested under Arena). Again, three different versions using varying amounts of RAM. diet.exe - approx 16Mb, mad.exe - approx 128Mb, lardy.exe - approx 1Gb.

Have fun, any queries, results etc, post them here or feel free to PM me.

As I have posted before, my engine is no longer competitive with the monsters at the top of the leaderboard. But so what? So long as I find it fun, and she plays some interesting and fun chess, then that's fine with me..



By the way, I tried a 64 bit compile, but found things wen slower?! Any hints on data types I should use (or avoid) to make things run good on 64 bit? My main PC runs an AMD II X4 635, and I use visual studio 10 for compiles for computer chess.

If your program is bitboard it will be astonishing if it runs slower. If it is 0x88 it will be astonishing if it runs faster.

Is Francesca a bitboard program?

[silentshark]

Hi all,

a new update of my chess playing program, Francesca, is available from my website, www.silentshark.co.uk

from the readme:

ok, a few changes, lots of testing, and about a 30 ELO improvement I hope. LMR improvements (e.g. doing LMR at the root of the tree, varying reduction according to depth, and moves made). Some eval tweaks (things like greater bonus for outposts).. what else? Experimental "force" mode for Winboard/ Arena (only tested under Arena). Again, three different versions using varying amounts of RAM. diet.exe - approx 16Mb, mad.exe - approx 128Mb, lardy.exe - approx 1Gb.

Have fun, any queries, results etc, post them here or feel free to PM me.

As I have posted before, my engine is no longer competitive with the monsters at the top of the leaderboard. But so what? So long as I find it fun, and she plays some interesting and fun chess, then that's fine with me..



By the way, I tried a 64 bit compile, but found things wen slower?! Any hints on data types I should use (or avoid) to make things run good on 64 bit? My main PC runs an AMD II X4 635, and I use visual studio 10 for compiles for computer chess.

If your program is bitboard it will be astonishing if it runs slower. If it is 0x88 it will be astonishing if it runs faster.

Is Francesca a bitboard program?

Erm, it's neither. Bitboards weren't invented when Francesca came into being, and there was nothing published about 0x88 back then! Since 1992 she has used a simple one dimensional array, with border squares.

Thanks for the pointer, though, Dann