Komodo 9 Announcement

[Dirt]

Komodo 9 price is set at $59.96, or $39.99 if you bought Komodo 8. If you want the one year subscription it will be $40 more in each case, the same as you would pay for one upgrade separately. So the total cost for the year will be the same as if you bought Komodo 9 plus one version six months later. The in-between versions will thus be free.

You're effectively promising that the next three upgrade prices will be fixed. I don't see why you would reduce your options that much. One reason people might have to buy the subscription is fear of a price rise, but you've removed that.

[mjlef]

Slight disappointment in not packaging android with windows purchase.

The issue we started having with Android version is trying to support all the different versions of Android and different hardware in a single file. This coupled with the difficulty for users to transfer and install has made me decide to let the Google Play Store handle things. Plus it is under $5.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Larry,

all is OK with your ideas and Komodo
I am one of the happyness users!!

Speaking and loud thinking for myself only in testing engines. First Houdini is a 1:1 copy from Robolite and not interesting for testing in my view because the programmer isn't honest and in this case: I'm through with him, very easy. Absolutely clear after all what I read here from programmer of Thinker, Critter and so many others.

I must life in danger because if such a programmer do that 1 time ... he do that again and again. The experience in Computer chess if I am looking in the past what others do.

Back to Komodo, much more interesting.
2x in the year it's indeed interesting to start a fight around place 1. I like that and visitors of a Rating list like that too. How is the strongest ... to each Topic really an event.

For myself good because I can improved my opening book a lot with the games I produced.

And now ...
Komodo week will be follow with the fight around place 1. One of the highlights Computer chess have. I wish you and Mark good luck with the fight around place 1. Stockfish dev. is hard to beat ... also in case Stockfish gave to many draws in the beginning.

I hope that I get the K9 version directly if available, so I can start the test directly.

Best and thanks!
Frank

And yes of course:
Fire and GullChess will be the opponents in the future for Komodo and Stockfish. I can see other engines too ... have a look what the programmers of Nirvana and Andscacs do. Texel is on the way and so many others. If the Fire programmer is working hard again on Version 4 ... we have a fight around place 1 with three engines. Norman is a very talended guy and have the knowledge to do that. Maybe he Need from time to time a kick. I am sure Jan Lowman would like to say that if he ... such things he do with Bart Westrate (Kallisto) but Bart have other interest at this time.

[Matthias Gemuh]

Hi Fernando,

do you know how many work it is to develop a new GUI. Six years I am working with Martin. ...

Do develop a new GUI ...
You can't do other things over years and you must have a lot of knowlege to all the protocols and other standards.

...

Best
Frank

Hi Frank,

thank you very much for explaining why I have not worked on BigLion since long ago.

Matthias ChessGUI.

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

Hi Adam,

yes, only this one I can do or I need more systems for testing. Mabe I will buy a third machine.

I will start the fight around place 1 ...

1.600 games vs. TOP-33 for Komodo 9 x64 at first. Directly after this one Stockfish current dev. BMI2 x64 (from the same day Komodo is released) have to play vs. the same participants. In this case both versions are sync for the follow test-runs.

Best
Frank

Frank, that sounds good man. What Haswell CPU are you using? You already have two machines? Three would be crazy man - and that could certainly impact your electricity bill.

[JohnW]

Can release any games that Komodo 9 has played?

[mjlef]

We have looked into doing an Amazon Android store version. It is definitely on the list. The programmer who did the Android version of Komodo is a bit under the weather, but I am sure he will do both as time permits. I am not sure when, but once we lock down Komodo 9 code and feels better he will work on it.

[RJN]

Great news to see FRC and persistent hash. Are there plans to eventually offer a Komodo that supports large pages?

I understand that for engine tournaments, this might not be very useful since LP can't always be guaranteed, but the extra speedup of about 15% is useful for squeezing every drop out of hardware when doing analysis.

[melajara]

@Fernando,

There is something in software engineering called MVC, i.e. Model View Controller (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%E2%8 ... controller)

Computer chess abides to this paradigm with engine developers realizing the model, the UCI protocol is the controller and the GUI is the view.

Fortunately, by following this development process, engine developers don't have to bother with the GUI (anymore) and can concentrate in improving the engine.

Now if you get some experience with your choice of 2D gaming SDK, you could realize YOURSELF a wonderful GUI, e.g. with exploding pieces on capture, beautifully sliding pieces, and more importantly some interesting graphical clues on unfolding maneuvers, threats, imbalance in play, blunder checking etc. just by driving the engine with suitable UCI orders and listening to the engine answers e.g. on a dedicated thread.

I once made a voice controlled chess GUI with special orders to promote a variety of blind play (e.g. remove the pieces from the board but not the pawns or the inverse or just one piece etc. or answer questions like "is there a piece on square e4? or "tell me what's White's queen position", etc) possibilities are infinite.

So, just start to program and have fun

[Dann Corbit]

Great you still keep working in Komodo, but I cannot avoid to tell you that at this level of playing force the 40 elo extra points are less desirable or important, at least for a player like me, than a new GUI.
There is something tired and even bothersome in just loading an engine in the very same gui, whatever it be. The field to gui expansion is huge. I am not just talking of the presentation in the screen, but of new, innovative services to make of a program a real chess partner, which today they are not.
I know I have said this same thing many times, without any effect, but I am a man of hope-...

Fern

Writing a GUI is a very different job than writing a chess engine.
Usually, a very different sort of programmer works on GUIs.
Typically, they need to be rather artistic.