Mini shogi engines and rating list

[Evert]

I think Martin mentioned he found an issue with the Sjaak was that already addressed?, it could be related to this.

Good point. Yes, that's fixed, but not yet released. I'll wrap up a new release over the weekend.
Would be nice if that fixes it, but the log looks different: in that case it responded to "new" but not to "variant". The issue was caused by allocating large objects on the stack, if there are more instances of that I may be able to find them by decreasing the stack space in Linux (I assume that's possible).

Come to think of it, Martin made a new compile that has that particular bug fixed. It's still labelled "1.4.1" though. I updated the Windows archive with that version on December 16. If the version you have is from or after that date, it should have that bug fixed already. If not, it may be worth checking if re-downloading and installing fixes it.

[Ferdy]

I think Martin mentioned he found an issue with the Sjaak was that already addressed?, it could be related to this.

Good point. Yes, that's fixed, but not yet released. I'll wrap up a new release over the weekend.
Would be nice if that fixes it, but the log looks different: in that case it responded to "new" but not to "variant". The issue was caused by allocating large objects on the stack, if there are more instances of that I may be able to find them by decreasing the stack space in Linux (I assume that's possible).

Come to think of it, Martin made a new compile that has that particular bug fixed. It's still labelled "1.4.1" though. I updated the Windows archive with that version on December 16. If the version you have is from or after that date, it should have that bug fixed already. If not, it may be worth checking if re-downloading and installing fixes it.

I was using v1.4.1, 2016-11-30.

[Evert]

I was using v1.4.1, 2016-11-30.

Ok, in that case it may be worth downloading the package again and giving it a go.

[Ferdy]

I was using v1.4.1, 2016-11-30.

Ok, in that case it may be worth downloading the package again and giving it a go.

Unfortunately same problem had occured.

[Evert]

I was using v1.4.1, 2016-11-30.

Ok, in that case it may be worth downloading the package again and giving it a go.

Unfortunately same problem had occured.

In that case, I will need some way to reproduce the problem...

[Ferdy]

I was using v1.4.1, 2016-11-30.

Ok, in that case it may be worth downloading the package again and giving it a go.

Unfortunately same problem had occured.

In that case, I will need some way to reproduce the problem...

Here is a hint to reproduce.
1. Create a gauntlet tour for Sjaak, i.e Sjaak vs other engines
2. Use the tourney manager of WB/XB, with tour cycles 25 and 2 games per pairing so that there will be a total of 50 games per match
3. Set a TC of 1m + 1s inc/move
4. Use a pgn opening suite,
mini-84openings-sorted-r1.pgn
take it from,
https://sites.google.com/view/minishogi ... ing-suites

[Evert]

Sorry, I can't reproduce it under Linux using those instructions. Either the problem doesn't show up there, or the conditions that trigger it don't occur. I used different verions of SjaakII in the gauntlet, because as far as I could tell the other engines only have Windows binaries available? That could bias the result in the sense that these all have the same play style.

On a different note, I find the "tournament mode" really inconvenient to use. I guess there's supposed to be some sort of memory of "known engines", but that list resets every time I start XBoard.

[hgm]

Do you have 'Save settings on Exit' on? XBoard should save the engine list with the other persistent settings in the ~/.xboardrc file. After you installed new engines, be it through the Load Engine dialog or through the auto-install function, you should make sure this is saved, either by using 'Save Settings Now' or having 'Save Settings on Exit' on.

Another problem can occur when you have multiple instances of XBoard open, add engines in one of them, but close the other, which still has old settings, later.

[Evert]

Do you have 'Save settings on Exit' on? XBoard should save the engine list with the other persistent settings in the ~/.xboardrc file. After you installed new engines, be it through the Load Engine dialog or through the auto-install function, you should make sure this is saved, either by using 'Save Settings Now' or having 'Save Settings on Exit' on.

I have it switched off, because I want XBoard to start in a reasonable default state, not whatever I left it with. I'll try with saving the settings after I add an engine to the list. I did click something that said "save engine list", but I guess that's something different?

[hgm]

I am not sure what you clicked. There is a menu item 'Edit Engine List', and it contains a button 'Commit Changes', but this only confirms the edits you might have done on the engine list as XBoard keeps it in memory.

The engine list is part of the persistent settings. Anything you want to carry over from one session to another by definition is. So if you don't want what you do during the session to affect future ones, that will also hold for the engine list. The only way to alter your settings (including the list) under those conditions would be to edit the settings file by other means than XBoard. But it is usually most convenient to use XBoard as 'editor' of its own settings. If you start XBoard, and later press 'Save Settings Now', only settings that you actively changed (e.g. by installing new engines) should be altered. And if you did nothing else than registering new engines, only the engine list would change.