The secret of Houdini

[JuLieN]

[CRoberson]

The secret of Houdini chess engine is that it uses all the physical memory of your computer.It's not a chess engine as the other ones but a speedhack engine.Simply when you open task manager you see houdini is running.But you don't see that houdini is running in high priority.This is the internal Houdini hack.Make an experiment.Try to arrange an engine match between Critter 1.4a and Houdini 2.0C on Arena interface for example.Before starting the match,go to your task manager and switch Critter to high Priority.Then start the match.Critter is superior in speed too and manages to beat Houdini with a narrow margin

Just my 2 cents over this issue

Sorry,but i have different view than yours

The bellow standings are based/played between each other on different separate PCs

And as we see, Houdini is still the world's number one engine

http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/july-december-2011/
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/scct-auto232/
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/ratings/scct-auto232/



Greetings,
Sedat

1)Where is Strelka? 2)This classification has nothing to do with my theory:)

Actually i already tested Strelka 5.1:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/ratings/scct-auto232/
28 Strelka 5.1 x64 1c 3244 14 14 1462 56% 3209 51%

Very soon i plan to start testing Strelka 5.5:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/scct-rating/

And i hope the new version of Strelka 5.5 will be ranked at one of the Top places

Btw,Auto232 testing is clear proof that your classification theory is wrong

Good luck,
Sedat

Auto232 testing is not immune to the problem of differing priorities. Two identical machines connected via auto232 still gives an advantage to the program with the higher priority due to competition with other programs (OS and such) on the same machine.

[Houdini]

You said 8ply for Houdini is not 8ply for Critter. Can you explain ?

Every engine uses different extensions, reductions, pruning and quiescence search strategies. An "8-ply" search in Stockfish is very different from an "8-ply" search in Houdini. The difference in approach makes any fixed-ply comparisons meaningless.

[JuLieN]

Could Process Monitor be of any help to settle this question? As I don't own Houdini could someone try to run it under Process Monitor's surveillance?

[Strelkaman]

The secret of Houdini chess engine is that it uses all the physical memory of your computer.It's not a chess engine as the other ones but a speedhack engine.Simply when you open task manager you see houdini is running.But you don't see that houdini is running in high priority.This is the internal Houdini hack.Make an experiment.Try to arrange an engine match between Critter 1.4a and Houdini 2.0C on Arena interface for example.Before starting the match,go to your task manager and switch Critter to high Priority.Then start the match.Critter is superior in speed too and manages to beat Houdini with a narrow margin

Just my 2 cents over this issue

Sorry,but i have different view than yours

The bellow standings are based/played between each other on different separate PCs

And as we see, Houdini is still the world's number one engine

http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/july-december-2011/
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/scct-auto232/
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/ratings/scct-auto232/



Greetings,
Sedat

1)Where is Strelka? 2)This classification has nothing to do with my theory:)

Actually i already tested Strelka 5.1:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/ratings/scct-auto232/
28 Strelka 5.1 x64 1c 3244 14 14 1462 56% 3209 51%

Very soon i plan to start testing Strelka 5.5:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/scct-rating/

And i hope the new version of Strelka 5.5 will be ranked at one of the Top places

Btw,Auto232 testing is clear proof that your classification theory is wrong

Good luck,
Sedat

Auto232 testing is not immune to the problem of differing priorities. Two identical machines connected via auto232 still gives an advantage to the program with the higher priority due to competition with other programs (OS and such) on the same machine.

Houdini has the higher priority all the time

[Houdini]

Well said Ben.I was talking about an internal app that is running by Houdini when the main chess engine is running too.An internal app that completely "eats" cpu resources or freeze the other engine too.Process thieves.I like the term

Good luck with your crackpot theories

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Thats why the processor is overheating faster when Houdini is running.

You should try Zappa Mexico II. Never noticed your overheating problem with Houdini, but certainly did with Zappa!

Graham when i say overheating i mean heating too much than in other engines.This is not a technical issue of my computer system just saying that Houdini "eat" Processor resources.

Let me simplify my thinking.its like a pacman game.You have houdini vs X engine.Houdini eats the white balls(processor resources) faster than the X engine.This is a battle in another territory and not in a chess.Its a processor resources battle.the more you dig to the processor the better engine you have?

Houdinin looks more like Mario to me

[elpapa]

I let Houdini analyze the start position for 30 seconds using six cores on my six core processor and it reached 10,040 knps. Then I did the same thing with Ivanhoe and it reached 9,940 knps.

I then ran both at the same time, both still set to use 6 cores, so that they had to "compete" for processor time. Houdini now ran at 4,102 knps or 41% of the original speed. Ivanhoe ran at 4,128 knps or 42% of the original speed.

Finally I changed the priority to 'Above Normal' for Ivanhoe and ran both simultaneously one more time. Apart from the system being sluggish and unresponsive Ivanhoe now reached 7,720 knps and Houdini 680 knps!

This is probably not the most scientific experiment ever made, but I'm pretty convinced Houdini doesn't have some secret way of getting a higher priority than other engines. Even if it had, why would it matter? In a normal game both engines are not running at the same time and probably not using all cores, so there wouldn't be anything to steal CPU time from.

[ilari]

Well said Ben.I was talking about an internal app that is running by Houdini when the main chess engine is running too.An internal app that completely "eats" cpu resources or freeze the other engine too.Process thieves.I like the term

This tinfoil-laden thread is getting more and more entertaining. All these claims and suspicions about resource consumption and sneaky child processes are actually very easy to check, but I guess that would totally ruin the fun.

BTW, it would be awesome if Dan Brown wrote a novel about the Houdini engine.

[Strelkaman]

I let Houdini analyze the start position for 30 seconds using six cores on my six core processor and it reached 10,040 knps. Then I did the same thing with Ivanhoe and it reached 9,940 knps.

I then ran both at the same time, both still set to use 6 cores, so that they had to "compete" for processor time. Houdini now ran at 4,102 knps or 41% of the original speed. Ivanhoe ran at 4,128 knps or 42% of the original speed.

Finally I changed the priority to 'Above Normal' for Ivanhoe and ran both simultaneously one more time. Apart from the system being sluggish and unresponsive Ivanhoe now reached 7,720 knps and Houdini 680 knps!

This is probably not the most scientific experiment ever made, but I'm pretty convinced Houdini doesn't have some secret way of getting a higher priority than other engines. Even if it had, why would it matter? In a normal game both engines are not running at the same time and probably not using all cores, so there wouldn't be anything to steal CPU time from.

So you set Ivanhoe "above normal" and Houdini stands to Normal.You saw a speed difference for 7.000 knps and you say that this is normal?First of all there are 2 processes running at the same time.How this is happening?I mean your ponder is OFF.Secondly I mean Houdini if it hasn't another processor thief app running in the background why your setting to "above normal" affect the houdini engine?To think about it logically,if your set is above normal with any other engine except Houdini you would have the same speed for both engines