I understand ponder makes no sense in this context, but not because it is not possible, just because it is useless: here this scheme is effective in self-testing and possibly just tuning patches, so ponder has no reason to be. Ponder testing makes sense only to test time management patches, and in this case you really _don't_ want to use this mode.bob wrote:Sorry, that breaks the test and you are RIGHT back to where you started, unpredictable results. Think about what is happening. Wildly varying ponder time is just as bad as the wildly varying search time which you are concerned about. Your node fix doesn't change the ponder noise whatsoever.mcostalba wrote:Pondering is not affected by this change. Indeed when pondering, you are free to use all the time you want as long as the opponent has not moved.bob wrote:What about pondering?
Hence ponder=off or it won't work. Fixed nodes is also bad for several reasons as it eliminates time allocation which is an important part of a chess engine. The only real solution is dedicated hardware to get rid of the time jitter.
Regarding fixed nodes games, please note that this is _not_ fixed nodes games, it is something very different, namely the engine is free to use only a fraction of available nodes, and how much of available nodes it uses is calculated with exactly the same time management formulas used in standard case. Eventually please read the other my post on this topic, so to better get this idea.