Aquarium IDEA question.

[glennsamuel32]

Will its analysis create a database and make a chess engine stronger by allowing it to access it during a game? Thanks for any input.

If you mean "using a database as an opening book", then yes -- Aquarium supports it.
Even supports linking your iDea analysis tree as an opening book
You'll need to build a tree from the database (pgn works fine) and link the tree to the bookadapter utility.
The utility also allows multiple trees and even ctg to be linked.

http://chessok.com/books/BAdapter.html

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=31158

Now for the issues
The bookadapter is unstable.
It locks onto one core and doesn't let go, even after the game ends (at least for me, using the latest bookadapter release)
If you're on autoplay in Playchess or Infinitychess, it leads to the next game starting but your engine won't move.
Other than that, Aqarium 2018 has worked pretty well for me.
IMHO, most issues are caused with large databases and errorneous pgns.
Using smaller dbs after filtering out bad pgns has worked fine for me.

[BrendanJNorman]

It is virtually undocumented which is why fanboys have created videos. The software is also extremely buggy. If you don't mind supporting such bad behavior with money, go for it. The company will never get anymore of mine.

As a computer programmer myself, calling the software a disgrace, is too kind.

My two cents.

Interesting, I shared a similar experience.

I really loved Aquarium, especially due to IDEA, tree management and some other stuff, but the way it manages engines (cramped, buggy UI) , and the ridiculous overall bugginess of the GUI - it really pushed me away.

And every time they bring out a new version, it seems essentially the same.

It's a shame because that software has huge potential.