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New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:23 pm
by eric.oldre
Hello everyone,

It's been long time since I've made any posts on a chess forum. Back around 2004 I released an engine name Latista, which I later need to rename to Sinobyl due to trademark issues. Sinobyl was written in C++ and had an ELO just north of 2100.

I've just pushed to GitHub a new winboard engine of mine written in C#. I think it compares pretty favorably to other engines written in managed languages, but I guess we shall see. I estimate it's ELO to be around 2300.

I'm dedicating development of my engine to my daughter Nora Grace Oldre who was taken from us unexpectedly a few days before she was due to be born. About 90% of the work on it was done while my wife was pregnant with her, and I declared it functionally 'good-enough' the day before she left us, June 9th, in anticipation of not having very much free time in the future.

The source can be downloaded at:
https://github.com/ericoldre/NoraGrace-Chess

Binaries are available at:
https://github.com/ericoldre/NoraGrace- ... s/tag/v1.0

I know there are a few of you out there (or someone) who likes to make logo images for engines. Please contact me if you would like to because I would like to contribute some ideas on that.

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:43 pm
by zullil
Hi Eric,

Thank you for sharing your engine---and condolences to your wife and you for your loss.

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:48 pm
by cdani
Thanks!
I'm sorry all that happened.

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 8:50 pm
by Dayffd
And my condolences, too.

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:09 pm
by Graham Banks
So sorry about your loss. :(
A nice idea to name your engine in her memory.

Regards,
Graham.

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 1:46 am
by Graham Banks
Hi Eric,

I've sent you a logo to take a look at.

Is there any way to set hash size settings for NoraGrace?

Graham.

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 2:59 pm
by Norbert Raimund Leisner
Windows XP SP3 error message after a double-click on the executable file:

no valid win32 application

Norbert

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:28 pm
by reflectionofpower
Graham Banks wrote:So sorry about your loss. :(
A nice idea to name your engine in her memory.

Regards,
Graham.
It was good idea to name it after her. I am sorry for your loss Eric

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 1:38 am
by eric.oldre
To answer your questions.

1) I unfortunately did not add a way to adjust the hash table sizes. I'll get to that eventually.

2) I BELIEVE that NoraGrace should run on any windows PC that has the latest version of the Microsoft .NET framework installed (version 4.5.1) actually it may only need version 4.0 of the framework but I haven't tested it under those conditions.

3) I did not do any testing with Winboard. However in response to Gabor's comment I've installed winboard 4.7.3 and it seems to be working fine.

I disabled logging in the config file in the binaries download. However we can turn in back on with the following contents. (IE put this in your NoraGrace.exe.config file in the same directory.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler, log4net" />
</configSections>
<appSettings>
<add key="log4net.Internal.Debug" value="false" />
</appSettings>
<log4net>
<root>
<level value="WARN" />
<appender-ref ref="logFileAppender" />
</root>
<logger name="NoraGrace.CommandLine">
<level value="INFO" />
</logger>
<appender name="logFileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender">
<file type="log4net.Util.PatternString">
<conversionPattern value="NoraGrace%date{ yyyyMMddHHmmss }-[%processid].log" />
</file>
<appendToFile value="true" />
<layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
<conversionPattern value="%logger - %message%newline" />
</layout>
</appender>
</log4net>
<startup>
<supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5.1" />
</startup>
</configuration>

If you have that in the config file it will create a log file. The contents of which you could sent to me and I'd most likely be able to fix the issue. (also I'd like to be aware of what is going on)

Thanks a lot everyone

Eric

Re: New open source engine in C# - NoraGrace

Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 1:42 am
by eric.oldre
Finally, important to note. NoraGrace is a Winboard engine. NOT UCI!