Portable recommendation?

[kaissa]

I want to have a strong PDA to play chess with. Playing strength is very vital; not that I am that strong ;) .

I have a Toshiba Libretto 70CT computer; Pentium 100MMX, 32 MB ram, NT4. I think I can setup Shredder 6 or Chess Genius 7 on it.

Second option is to purchase a PDA and a program for it. One is either Palm Life Drive, Intel Xscale 410 something MHZ and Hiarcs for Palm. The other option is an HP Ipaq Intel Xscale 600 something MHZ and Chess Genius.

Weight is important for sure but I am not sure if a recent PDA is stronger than a Pentium computer in number crunching. I know I am comparing apples and oranges but still any ideas?

I like Palm a lot, but its OS is almost dead. Which of the three configuration would be the strongest chess computer?

Thank you for your time,

[Cubeman]

I have done alot of testing of various combinations of PDA and chess programs and at the moment I prefer the iPAQ 2750 with a 624Mhz processor and run PocketGrandMaster 3.0 loaded with Toga ll 1.2.1a.The reason I prefer to use the 2750 compared to the 2790 which I also own is because I can use a Hashtable size of 32 mb compared to only 16 mb.This gives the engine about 6% increase in speed.I also like the PPC compared to Palm since there is more chess relatrd software and if you want to run Hiarcs or Tiger etc you still can with the StyleTap emulator.My order of preference goes somthing like this.
Togall 1.2.1a,PocketFritz2,Hiarcs,ChessGenius.But PocketFritz2 lock up your PPC on WM 2003 or less but can be run fine on WM 2005.Ther is no difference in speed between these 2 operating systems as I have tested identical positions with exactly the same engines and they run at the same nodes/second.But when you go back to PPC 2002 then you will notice a big drop off in performance.
For example my first PPC was a Compaq 3950 400mhz intel Xscale 2002 OS and I use to get about 3000 nps but now with iPAQ 2790 624mhz 2005 OS i get about 45000 nps which is a speed up of 15 times.Also the analysis information of the PPC versions is much more detailed with varaiations showing 18 ply or more whereas Hiarcs can only give 6 ply at most.

[kaissa]

[quote="Cubeman"]I have done alot of testing of various combinations of PDA and chess programs and at the moment I prefer the iPAQ 2750 with a 624Mhz processor and run PocketGrandMaster 3.0 loaded with Toga ll 1.2.1a.The reason I prefer to use the 2750 compared to the 2790 which I also own is because I can use a Hashtable size of 32 mb compared to only 16 mb.This gives the engine about 6% increase in speed.[/quote]

I am suprised to learn that a new model would offer less memory.

[quote="Cubeman"]I also like the PPC compared to Palm since there is more chess relatrd software and if you want to run Hiarcs or Tiger etc you still can with the StyleTap emulator. [/quote]

How much ELO one would lose with an emulator? I think Hiarcs is a great engine, when run on a emulation program, it will lose strength. Their web site says that performance loss is 25%.

[quote="Cubeman"]For example my first PPC was a Compaq 3950 400mhz intel Xscale 2002 OS and I use to get about 3000 nps but now with iPAQ 2790 624mhz 2005 OS i get about 45000 nps which is a speed up of 15 times. [/quote]

624 mhz and 2005 OS is 15 times faster than 400 mhz and 2002 OS! I guess that has to do with the OS, rather than the speed of the processor. Do you know whether a 624 Mhz PDA is stronger than a Pentium 100 computer? Thank you very much for the information.

[Albert Silver]

I have done alot of testing of various combinations of PDA and chess programs and at the moment I prefer the iPAQ 2750 with a 624Mhz processor and run PocketGrandMaster 3.0 loaded with Toga ll 1.2.1a.The reason I prefer to use the 2750 compared to the 2790 which I also own is because I can use a Hashtable size of 32 mb compared to only 16 mb.This gives the engine about 6% increase in speed.

I am suprised to learn that a new model would offer less memory.

I've had a 624MHz PDA for 2 years now. Guess how many models with faster CPUs are out since then?

BTW, aside from PocketGM 3.0, which I have and is excellent, there is also CEBoard, also with Toga and company.

For example my first PPC was a Compaq 3950 400mhz intel Xscale 2002 OS and I use to get about 3000 nps but now with iPAQ 2790 624mhz 2005 OS i get about 45000 nps which is a speed up of 15 times.

624 mhz and 2005 OS is 15 times faster than 400 mhz and 2002 OS! I guess that has to do with the OS, rather than the speed of the processor. Do you know whether a 624 Mhz PDA is stronger than a Pentium 100 computer? Thank you very much for the information.

If it is an original Pentium 100 (not a more modern one that is underclocked) then the top PDA would be faster. I tested Toga on it compared to my AMD 2400XP+ (2GHz) at the time and it was about 15-20 times slower on average.

Albert

[Cubeman]

I have done alot of testing of various combinations of PDA and chess programs and at the moment I prefer the iPAQ 2750 with a 624Mhz processor and run PocketGrandMaster 3.0 loaded with Toga ll 1.2.1a.The reason I prefer to use the 2750 compared to the 2790 which I also own is because I can use a Hashtable size of 32 mb compared to only 16 mb.This gives the engine about 6% increase in speed.

I am suprised to learn that a new model would offer less memory.
It is just the way memory is allocated as the Hashtable uses RAM.So the 2790 has more of it's memory allocated to ROM where as the 2750 has about twice as much allocated to RAM.

I also like the PPC compared to Palm since there is more chess relatrd software and if you want to run Hiarcs or Tiger etc you still can with the StyleTap emulator.

How much ELO one would lose with an emulator? I think Hiarcs is a great engine, when run on a emulation program, it will lose strength. Their web site says that performance loss is 25%.
Yes that would seem true.I use to have a Palm TX5 416mhz and had Hiarcs on it,but unfortunatly I can't test this to verify.One really good thing about Hiarcs is that you can see it's opening book with every move it will show a list of moves it has in book, so is a good thing to use just to brush up on a particular opening.
Hiarcs for Palm has not been updated for about 2 years now so if it was then we could expect a big jump in rating I imagine.Also it would be great if they developed a native PPC version as I find StyleTap a bit ugly and alkward to use, not to mention the price of StyleTap on top of Hiarcs.

For example my first PPC was a Compaq 3950 400mhz intel Xscale 2002 OS and I use to get about 3000 nps but now with iPAQ 2790 624mhz 2005 OS i get about 45000 nps which is a speed up of 15 times.

624 mhz and 2005 OS is 15 times faster than 400 mhz and 2002 OS! I guess that has to do with the OS, rather than the speed of the processor. Do you know whether a 624 Mhz PDA is stronger than a Pentium 100 computer? Thank you very much for the information.

It is a combination of these 2 factors, I don't know for sure if the 624 Mhz is faster than a Pentium 100 but I would guess yes.