zullil wrote:Is the source code available? All I find in the package are Windows binaries. The source code for Chest 3.19 is available, but it seems that ChestUCI contains improvements to the underlying Chest code. (Is this true?) Mac and Linux users might like to have native binaries of this useful tool.
Hi Louis,
you're right that the WinChest module used in ChestUCI is an improved version of the original Chest 3.19.
ChestUCI is written in Borland Delphi, and I definitely don't plan to release its source code (and also not the improvements for Chest), sorry.
But I'm sure that ChestUCI can also be used on other systems with Windows emulators, and furthermore everyone is free to use the original Chest 3.19 source code and create an UCI engine or matesolver from it.
zullil wrote:
Sure you're not interested in modifying your program to use multiple cores?
This would have to be done in the WinChest engine (and not in ChestUCI which is just the interface), but Chest is written in 'C' and I'm far away from being a 'C' expert.
I could only make a few small changes and enhancements in Chest, but I'm absolutely not able to implement MP code, this would require a full understanding of Chest's algorithms, and that's simply too complicated for a 'C' amateur like me - this could only be done by the author Heiner Marxen himself!
zullil wrote:
Sure you're not interested in modifying your program to use multiple cores?
This would have to be done in the WinChest engine (and not in ChestUCI which is just the interface), but Chest is written in 'C' and I'm far away from being a 'C' expert.
I could only make a few small changes and enhancements in Chest, but I'm absolutely not able to implement MP code, this would require a full understanding of Chest's algorithms, and that's simply too complicated for a 'C' amateur like me - this could only be done by the author Heiner Marxen himself!
The Chest engine is open source, and so it should not be terribly difficult to make an SMP version. A process model is much easier than a threaded model for Chest, because of all the global variables (zillions of them). However, if the hash table were to be put into shared memory, it would not be difficult to do it.
I think if it were important to him, Heiner would do it. It's really his project.
Now I'm confused. Is the WinChest engine written in C? Is it available as source? Who wrote this engine? Will it find mates much faster than Chest 3.19?
zullil wrote:Now I'm confused. Is the WinChest engine written in C? Is it available as source? Who wrote this engine? Will it find mates much faster than Chest 3.19?
Is Chest still being developed?
Thanks.
Winchest is Mr. Huber's tweaked version of Chest v3.19.
Mr. Huber also wrote a very nice shell that sits over top of Chest v3.19 and makes it act like a UCI engine (that is the big benefit of his ChestUCI system).
There does not seem to be a lot of activity in improving Chest, as I think that the original author, Heiner Marxen, has other things to do that he finds more interesting now.
