Chess Engines, GUIs and Databases for Mac Users?

[Amstaff]

Hello, for various reasons I'm switching to a Mac computer and if anyone has suggestions for decent engines, GUIs and Databases for the Mac I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Gerald

[hgm]

There is an XBoard package for Mac available from WinBoard forum. This should be able to satisfy all needs for playing against engines or on ICS, doing engine tourneys or interactive analysis. Database functionality is only limited (mainly because it gets slow for very large databases, as it uses PGN format.)

[Amstaff]

Thank you Mr. Muller I'll check it out. Dumb question, can the standard uci engines, Houdini, Critter, Komodo, etc. run in the Mac environment?
Gerald

[ZirconiumX]

Not natively, but you could try Darwine...

http://darwine.sourceforge.net/

I would actually suggest something like Scid vs. Mac which is natively supported on Mac - HGM doesn't have hardware to bugfix on AFAIK - but I think Steven Atkinson has some...

The Scid family have better database functionality than XBoard does - but it is heavier than XBoard - so it is up to you.

Matthew:out

[hgm]

HGM doesn't have hardware to bugfix on AFAIK

This is true, but as XBoard makes use of the BSD Unix support built in to the Mac, it is basically identical to the Linux ersion. I am not really aware of any Mac-specific bugs that would need fixing. The most difficult point is usually to get it to compile. (Because of different organization and location of the required libraries on Mac.) Once we managed to do that, there usually are no problems at all.

[JuLieN]

Hello, for various reasons I'm switching to a Mac computer and if anyone has suggestions for decent engines, GUIs and Databases for the Mac I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Gerald

I think the best choice on Mac, for the moment, is ScidVsMac:
http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net

This is the one I use the most on daily basis. Keep in mind that it's not really designed to play games against the computer. But it's perfect to analyze positions and games with uci/xboard engines, and browse through large bases of games.

Then to play against the computer, you have either paying or free GUI.

Paying ones include:
- Shredder : http://www.shredderchess.com/mac.html
- HIARCS Chess Explorer : http://www.hiarcs.com/mac-chess-explorer.htm

Free ones include:
- xboard (I'm not sure where to get a Mac version... HG?)
- Sigma Chess : http://www.sigmachess.com
- and Java interfaces like Jin (for FICS)

Now, for chess engines, you can download those I compiled. They are in my repository:
http://julien.marcel.free.fr/macchess/

[hgm]

- xboard (I'm not sure where to get a Mac version... HG?)

http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewt ... 19&t=50428

[zullil]

Thank you Mr. Muller I'll check it out. Dumb question, can the standard uci engines, Houdini, Critter, Komodo, etc. run in the Mac environment?
Gerald

An OS X binary for Critter is available at http://www.vlasak.biz/critter/

An OS X binary for Komodo 3 is at http://komodochess.com/downloads.php

An OS X binary for Stockfish is at http://stockfishchess.org/download/

I don't believe there is an OS X binary for Houdini, but you should be able to run a Windows binary using wine. For what it is worth, I now use MacPorts to install wine.

OS X binaries are also available for many other engines.

[IanO]

Hello, for various reasons I'm switching to a Mac computer and if anyone has suggestions for decent engines, GUIs and Databases for the Mac I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Gerald

Engines with Mac compiles, in order by strength:
* Critter
* Stockfish
* Ivanhoe46f
* Hiarcs 14 ($)
* Komodo 3
* Robbolito85g3
* Junior 13.3 ($)
* Shredder 12 ($$)
* Spark
* Protector
* Scorpio
* Crafty
* Toga 1.4
* Fruit 2.3.1
* dozens of other free engines are weaker, including Sjeng engine in built-in Chess.app

I managed to hack patches for Gull 1.2 and Umko 0.12, but I don't think they are supported.

UIs:
* Stockfish UI, good for UCI engine matches, but no longer maintained.
* XBoard is a robust, well-maintained X11 client; also does chess servers
* Shredder UI ($$)
* cutechess also good for UCI/xboard engine matches, has a TCL/TK UI.
* (SigmaChess no longer runs on OS X 10.7 (Lion) or later)

Databases:
* Hiarcs Explorer ($), very polished, just released last year
* SCID
* ExaChess

[ZirconiumX]

Hello, for various reasons I'm switching to a Mac computer and if anyone has suggestions for decent engines, GUIs and Databases for the Mac I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Gerald

I think the best choice on Mac, for the moment, is ScidVsMac:
http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net

This is the one I use the most on daily basis. Keep in mind that it's not really designed to play games against the computer. But it's perfect to analyze positions and games with uci/xboard engines, and browse through large bases of games.

Then to play against the computer, you have either paying or free GUI.

Paying ones include:
- Shredder : http://www.shredderchess.com/mac.html
- HIARCS Chess Explorer : http://www.hiarcs.com/mac-chess-explorer.htm

Free ones include:
- xboard (I'm not sure where to get a Mac version... HG?)
- Sigma Chess : http://www.sigmachess.com
- and Java interfaces like Jin (for FICS)

Now, for chess engines, you can download those I compiled. They are in my repository:
http://julien.marcel.free.fr/macchess/

Failing that - I use Sigma Chess which is a good all-rounder - database capabilities are acceptable - engine testing facilities are good.

It has two main problems: it is rather unstable (even on a native PPC Mac it crashes quite a bit) and as it is PPC-only it won't run on Mac OS X 10.7 or newer...

Matthew:out