Chessbase GUI & Critter + Gaviota tablebases

[rvida]

I had received a lot of complaints that Critter does not use tablebases under Chessbase GUI. While I do not own this GUI, a fellow CC fan gave me remote access to his PC and I can confirm that there is indeed a problem.

The bad thing:
CB's UCI implementation is somewhat broken (even more than Aquariums). CB GUI does not seem to send 'isready' to the engine after setting 'GaviotaTBPath' UCI option. Critter does rely on this, in fact it applies the new settings only after receiving 'isready' command. I am stubborn enough to not work around this. Please bug the CB customer support about this

The good thing:
There is a workaround. Critter can load tablebases without any intervention from the side of GUI, as long as the tablebase files are located on the same disk drive as Critter executable and the folder is named \gtb.
Example: If Critter resides in d:\whatever\engines\critter_0.90\ and the tablebase files are located in d:\gtb\ they will load just fine.


Another workaround:

Use a better GUI
Shredder Classic, ChessGUI and Arena are my favorites. All of them are fully UCI compliant.

Richard

[rvida]

Code: Select all

uci
setoption name Hash value 600
setoption name Threads value 1
isready
setoption name Clear Hash
setoption name GaviotaTbPath value d:\gtbx
position startpos moves e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 b8c6
go wtime 230000 btime 243000 winc 2000 binc 2000
stop

[tmokonen]

Another workaround it to create a shortcut in the C:\ folder, named gtb, that points to the folder that contains the Gaviota tablebases, if you don't want to move that folder and re-configure engines that may already be using the tablebases, or waste disk space by having the tablebases in two locations.

[mhalstern]

It is time for me to purchase the Schredder Classic GUI. As the inventer of the uci protocol wrote it, it should be 100% uci complaint!

Thanks for the confirmation of the Chessbase GUI issues. I would like credit for figuring this out first. See my post in page 4 of this thread:

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36854

[ernest]

With Richard's workaround, it works fine with the Fritz GUI.

Don't forget to set Tablebase Usage to Everywhere.

[Sylwy]

1.
There is a workaround. Critter can load tablebases without any intervention from the side of GUI, as long as the tablebase files are located on the same disk drive as Critter executable and the folder is named \gtb.
Example: If Critter resides in d:\whatever\engines\critter_0.90\ and the tablebase files are located in d:\gtb\ they will load just fine.

2.
Another workaround:

Use a better GUI
Shredder Classic

Richard

THANK YOU RICHARD FOR YOUR FANTASTIC CHESS ENGINE !

1.Works in Fritz 12 ! Thank you again !
2.Right , Shredder GUI is UCI protocol itself !

Silvian

[Houdini]

It is time for me to purchase the Schredder Classic GUI. As the inventer of the uci protocol wrote it, it should be 100% uci complaint!

Except that Shredder sends incomplete FEN strings to the engines...

As engine developer we have little other choice than to adapt to the quirks of the GUI, even if their behaviour doesn't follow the standard.

[michiguel]

It is time for me to purchase the Schredder Classic GUI. As the inventer of the uci protocol wrote it, it should be 100% uci complaint!

Thanks for the confirmation of the Chessbase GUI issues. I would like credit for figuring this out first. See my post in page 4 of this thread:

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36854

The Linux version, at least, it is not fully compliant. I do not remember what is it but I post it about some time ago. I think it is the FEN line as RH mention somewhere. It is really annoying the way some commercial GUIs butcher the protocols. Aquarium is notorious for it.

If I understand correctly, Richard is right about not fixing the problem. Doing it will make Critter violate the spirit of the UCI protocol. You initialize things after "isready", not before.

Miguel