Protector 1.3.2 released

[Graham Banks]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/protect ... z/download

From Raimund (author):

I've just released version 1.3.2. Results are very promising (the 64-bit variant currently scores 51% vs. Stockfish 1.5.1 [2'+1'', 116 games of 200 played]). I've enhanced the passed pawn eval and after two weeks of frustration it seems to work eventually.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Thanks Graham for the link
Cheers,
Dr.D

[BBauer]

Thanks for the release.
Some questions:
Can protector make use of several threads? How?
Can protector use tablebases?
The makefile doesn't work for me (ubuntu9.10, 64-bit system).
Neither icc nor gcc work. Hundreds of warnings.
regards
Bernhard

[Graham Banks]

Thanks for the release.
Some questions:
Can protector make use of several threads? How?
Can protector use tablebases?
The makefile doesn't work for me (ubuntu9.10, 64-bit system).
Neither icc nor gcc work. Hundreds of warnings.
regards
Bernhard

As far as I'm aware, Protector is still single-cpu. It cannot access tablebases.
I know that the author reads here, so hopefully he can answer your other queries. If necessary, I can email him on your behalf.

Cheers,
Graham.

[RaimundHeid]

- Ubuntu 9.10: I use the Makefile provided with the 1.3.2 release on Ubuntu 9.10 32 bit. No warnings from ICC 11.0. Please note that the installation of ICC on Ubuntu 9.10 is a bit complicated since Ubuntu 9.10 doesn't contain libstdc++.so.5. See

http://software.intel.com/en-us/article ... th-ubuntu/

for this. I've installed libstdc++.so.5 manually from a Debian package after the upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10. I will soon upgrade my Ubuntu 64 bit VM in order to make sure the 64-bit version can also be compiled on Ubuntu 9.10. Does the 64 bit binary from the release work on Ubuntu 9.10? -- please report if it doesn't.

- Multiple threads: yes, supported. Set the engine option "Number of threads" to the desired value.

- Tablebase support: No, since I didn't get a usage permission from Eugene Nalimov. According to my tests the effect on the rating is marginal (10-15 points).

[BBauer]

The good news Protector_Linux64.exe works.

However, I'm not able to use 2 procs and no tablebase use as I can see from the log file.

Here is my polyglot.ini file

[PolyGlot]
EngineDir = .
#
EngineCommand = ./Protector_Linux64.exe
Log = true
LogFile = protector.log
[Engine]
NalimovPath=/media/ram-disk/tb34;/media/6018-1C6E/64/tb/tb5
Hash = 512
Number of threads = 2
#

kind regards
Bernhard

[RaimundHeid]

The good news Protector_Linux64.exe works.

However, I'm not able to use 2 procs and no tablebase use as I can see from the log file.

Here is my polyglot.ini file

[PolyGlot]
EngineDir = .
#
EngineCommand = ./Protector_Linux64.exe
Log = true
LogFile = protector.log
[Engine]
NalimovPath=/media/ram-disk/tb34;/media/6018-1C6E/64/tb/tb5
Hash = 512
Number of threads = 2
#

kind regards
Bernhard

Sorry, I wasn't aware you're not using a GUI. Please try "Number Of Threads" (case sensitive). As mentioned, tablebases are not supported.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hello Raimund,

the first:
I like your engine too and I am testing

I can see a jumping from version 1.29 to 1.31b from around 30 ELO. Now I am testing version 1.32, thanks for it !!!

The nalimov question is for much programmers a bigger problem. Perhaps Eugene and Andrew should give the sources absolutly free for all. So far it's not OK that different programmers can use it and other programmer have to wait or can't use it.

But I don't understand why you don't use egbbs. An other way is to contact Stefan Meyer-Kahlen ... perhaps Stefan will give a permission for the shredderbases. I don't know why Stefan hold the sources for shredderbases secret ... it would be nice for others to use it, means his big effort he do for around 4 years.

Only loud and clear thinking ... (about shredderbases).

Perhaps you can explain me why you don't use egbbs. This would be interesting for me to know it.

Best
Frank

[BBauer]

Thank you,

now I can use several threads.

kind regards
Bernhard

[RaimundHeid]

Hello Raimund,

the first:
I like your engine too and I am testing

I can see a jumping from version 1.29 to 1.31b from around 30 ELO. Now I am testing version 1.32, thanks for it !!!

The nalimov question is for much programmers a bigger problem. Perhaps Eugene and Andrew should give the sources absolutly free for all. So far it's not OK that different programmers can use it and other programmer have to wait or can't use it.

But I don't understand why you don't use egbbs. An other way is to contact Stefan Meyer-Kahlen ... perhaps Stefan will give a permission for the shredderbases. I don't know why Stefan hold the sources for shredderbases secret ... it would be nice for others to use it, means his big effort he do for around 4 years.

Only loud and clear thinking ... (about shredderbases).

Perhaps you can explain me why you don't use egbbs. This would be interesting for me to know it.

Best
Frank

Hi Frank,

I have several reasons not to use egbbs. The most important ones:

1) The effect of tablebases (egbb and Nalimov) on the rating of an engine with some basic endgame knowledge seems to be small (10-15 rating points). Since the time I can spend on Protector is very limited and my main goal is to increase its rating the support for any kind of tablebases is in the lower part of my TODO list.

2) To the best of my knowlegde egbbs (Scorpio) require a system-dependant DLL. Unpleasant limitation.

3) In contrast to Nalimov tablebases the path to the egbbs is a special param which the user has to configure for every engine separately. Also unpleasant.

4) In contrast to Nalimov tablebases with distance-to-mate values the results extracted from egbbs need special treatment if a winning position is indicated. Otherwise your engine will draw several won pawnless endgames by shuffling pieces around (e.g. KBBKN, KQKBB or KNNKP -- if the winning player owns a pawn the treatment is relatively easy: add a big bonus to the normal endgame eval value, pawn pushes will do the rest of the job; KQPKQ might still need some extra eval).

Actually it's a bit ridiculous if your engine requires tablebases since this means the user will have to download tons of data in order to make a 300k program fulfil its task.

Nonetheless I would love to reactivate the tablebase support in Protector because it's cool to issue these "Mate in 95" announcements But I won't add it without the permission from Eugene Nalimov.