MT or KISS ?

[Dan Honeycutt]

Hi all,

Anyone have a preference between the Mersenne twister, KISS, or some other PRNG?

Thanks
Dan H.

[diep]

Hi all,

Anyone have a preference between the Mersenne twister, KISS, or some other PRNG?

Thanks
Dan H.

Where do you need it for and how many numbers do you want it to generate?

[bob]

Hi all,

Anyone have a preference between the Mersenne twister, KISS, or some other PRNG?

Thanks
Dan H.

I think all work well for chess. You don't need that many numbers so cycling is not an issue...

[Dan Honeycutt]

Where do you need it for and how many numbers do you want it to generate?

For hashing. only about a thousand values.

Best
Dan H.

[michiguel]

Where do you need it for and how many numbers do you want it to generate?

For hashing. only about a thousand values.

Best
Dan H.

After trying different things, I settled for hardwiring them with numbers from here http://www.random.org/

Miguel

[Dan Honeycutt]

Where do you need it for and how many numbers do you want it to generate?

For hashing. only about a thousand values.

Best
Dan H.

After trying different things, I settled for hardwiring them with numbers from here http://www.random.org/

Miguel

Hi Miguel,

Can you elaborate a bit on "After trying different things"? With my C engines (Simon and Bruja) I do the same thing. I'm presently working on a Java engine which I'd like to keep fairly streamlined. Thus I'm looking to replace several pages of 0xblah, blah blah random numbers with a few lines of code: my_prng()

It is my opinion, based solely on gut feel rather than on any basis in probability and statistics, that hashing with numbers generated with a good prng are going to suffer no more than one in a zillion more collisions than hashing with true random numbers. However, I'm entirely open to contrary opinions, especially from someone with some math to back up what they say.


Best
Dan H.

[michiguel]

Where do you need it for and how many numbers do you want it to generate?

For hashing. only about a thousand values.

Best
Dan H.

After trying different things, I settled for hardwiring them with numbers from here http://www.random.org/

Miguel

Hi Miguel,

Can you elaborate a bit on "After trying different things"? With my C engines (Simon and Bruja) I do the same thing. I'm presently working on a Java engine which I'd like to keep fairly streamlined. Thus I'm looking to replace several pages of 0xblah, blah blah random numbers with a few lines of code: my_prng()

It is my opinion, based solely on gut feel rather than on any basis in probability and statistics, that hashing with numbers generated with a good prng are going to suffer no more than one in a zillion more collisions than hashing with true random numbers. However, I'm entirely open to contrary opinions, especially from someone with some math to back up what they say.

Best
Dan H.

I tried a couple of public domain generators from the net. I don't remember now, but I can dig it from the old source code. Anyway, I do not think they were anything special.

I agree that there should be any difference in strength. I think this is all a matter of taste.

Miguel

[Dan Honeycutt]

I think this is all a matter of taste.

Miguel

Okay. Thanks for your input.

Best
Dan H.

[diep]

Hi all,

Anyone have a preference between the Mersenne twister, KISS, or some other PRNG?

Thanks
Dan H.

Where do you need it for and how many numbers do you want it to generate?

Really lots will work. Just make sure it generates 64 bits numbers and not 32 bits. The standard tests used for RNG's to see them as being ok are more than sufficient for Zobrist.

If you don't want to research all that,
the cheapest safe idea is always to store it in an array in hex and then modify something by hand at 4 AM using the overwrite and write a 0 here and a 1 there an a 'f' somewhere else and do that for all 16 characters.

[rvida]

This is what Critter uses:

Code: Select all

const unsigned int rnd_seed[55] = {
  0x5414d5f4, 0xb3935330, 0xd0773e27, 0xac62a182,
  0x5db20c92, 0xc1e618ac, 0xd003926a, 0x171fa3b3,
  0x9ad12101, 0x762172c1, 0xbc5d9dc3, 0x07b72a70,
  0x6e5ac890, 0xf7be54d1, 0x0d6332fa, 0x56ba8fbe,
  0xeba585ec, 0x571421c5, 0x96b3c079, 0x12eb9b92,
  0xc07c0978, 0x0700c5bd, 0x31a43513, 0x74eba4aa,
  0x4ec55db5, 0x2c91c2e9, 0x208771f6, 0x304ee204,
  0x1e004673, 0xf3ac22f9, 0xa8561feb, 0xded13435,
  0xd03e7513, 0xdae66bc2, 0x01c20be1, 0x46638997,
  0xfb26ce62, 0x01f87fc3, 0xc0016099, 0x44429270,
  0xb04f4481, 0xf31b8ad7, 0x86dd7a46, 0x03e72091,
  0x96a22589, 0x74dcb7d4, 0x12d0fc03, 0x474a16e8,
  0x2ff5717c, 0x54bded92, 0x783a9487, 0xe767978c,
  0x3052d5cd, 0x16eca191, 0x8eaf6d15
};

static unsigned int rnd_tab[55];
static int rnd_j, rnd_k;

void init_random() {
  for &#40;int i = 0; i < 55; i++)
    rnd_tab&#91;i&#93; = rnd_seed&#91;i&#93;;
  rnd_j = 23;
  rnd_k = 54;
&#125;

unsigned int random32&#40;) &#123;
  unsigned int rnd = &#40;rnd_tab&#91;rnd_k&#93; += rnd_tab&#91;rnd_j&#93;);
  if (--rnd_j < 0&#41; rnd_j = 54;
  if (--rnd_k < 0&#41; rnd_k = 54;
  return rnd;
&#125;

Key random64&#40;) &#123;
  Key a = random32&#40;), b = random32&#40;);
  return &#40;a << 32 | b&#41;;
&#125; 

PS. "Key" is a typedef for "uint64_t"