ChessGUI

[BubbaTough]

OK,

Instead of continuing to hijack another thread, I thought I would start my own. I am using this thread to provide feedback (and ask for help) using ChessGUI. Here is my experience so far:

1. I managed to install LearningLemming and play a couple of games. Yes!
2. The default time should not be 0 for games. That had me fooled for a bit since all games ended immediately with no moves made.
3. There should be a square highlighting or something when a human selects a square to make a move. Took me a while to figure out how to move.
4. It would be nice to be able to have fractions of a second in the increment. This is not that important for groups like CCRL but is a popular desire for developers testing their engine because they often like to play lots of games fast.
5. It is unclear how to terminate an ongoing tournament.

I have also been unable to get another engine working. I tried 2. Fruit_21 gives me a LaunchChessEngine() failure using either UCI1 and UCI2 {it works for me under Arena} and Crafty 22.8-win64 gives me the same problem using WB1 and WB2 (also works for me under Arena).

-Sam

[Matthias Gemuh]

OK,

Instead of continuing to hijack another thread, I thought I would start my own. I am using this thread to provide feedback (and ask for help) using ChessGUI. Here is my experience so far:

1. I managed to install LearningLemming and play a couple of games. Yes!
2. The default time should not be 0 for games. That had me fooled for a bit since all games ended immediately with no moves made.
3. There should be a square highlighting or something when a human selects a square to make a move. Took me a while to figure out how to move.
4. It would be nice to be able to have fractions of a second in the increment. This is not that important for groups like CCRL but is a popular desire for developers testing their engine because they often like to play lots of games fast.
5. It is unclear how to terminate an ongoing tournament.

I have also been unable to get another engine working. I tried 2. Fruit_21 gives me a LaunchChessEngine() failure using either UCI1 and UCI2 {it works for me under Arena} and Crafty 22.8-win64 gives me the same problem using WB1 and WB2 (also works for me under Arena).

-Sam

1. good
2. good suggestion
3. played "human vs. engine" ? Not comfortable under ChessGUI yet.
4. millisec times for WB protocol ?
5. just close GUI after few game moves for now.

Fruit_21 installation issues ?
Uninstall all Fruit_21's, set UCI2, install engine and wait a few seconds before saving options (after UCI author name appears).
When setting up tournament, check GUI options through tournament setup window to make sure you don't exclude engines that should participate.

Matthias.

[BubbaTough]

I don't know anything about WB protocol, but if WB only talks in terms of seconds, the GUI could keep track of things in terms of MS, and then just round down to the nearest second for WB. I assume that is what Arena does , but I do not know that for sure.

I tried again with Fruit, and the Author name is unknown. This did not happen with my own engine, which automatically loaded author information correctly. Under the debug window, after i have selected Fruit via Browse for engine I get a Now in EarseInputBuffers then GetPrivateProfileString() no value for MyName and for EngineFile as well as several LaunchChessEngine() failures. When I launch it in Arena I get the author (Fabien Letouzey, France) showing.

I also tried installing bright-0.3a and the same thing happened as with Fruit. I must be doing something wrong, but not sure what. Certainly the last thing I expected was for my engine to load and no one other .

-Sam

-Sam

[Matthias Gemuh]

I don't know anything about WB protocol, but if WB only talks in terms of seconds, the GUI could keep track of things in terms of MS, and then just round down to the nearest second for WB. I assume that is what Arena does , but I do not know that for sure.

-Sam

I shall consider whether to offer such a thing.
ChessGUI's philosophy is to unload every engine after every game.
Fastest games I personally play under ChessGUI are "game in 10 sec".

Matthias.

[Matthias Gemuh]

I tried again with Fruit, and the Author name is unknown. This did not happen with my own engine, which automatically loaded author information correctly. Under the debug window, after i have selected Fruit via Browse for engine I get a Now in EarseInputBuffers then GetPrivateProfileString() no value for MyName and for EngineFile as well as several LaunchChessEngine() failures. When I launch it in Arena I get the author (Fabien Letouzey, France) showing.

I also tried installing bright-0.3a and the same thing happened as with Fruit. I must be doing something wrong, but not sure what. Certainly the last thing I expected was for my engine to load and no one other .

-Sam

-Sam

I am able to uninstall my Fruit21, shutdown ChessGUI, launch it again, re-install Fruit21 without a problem. I have more than 1200 engines running under ChessGUI.

So I am puzzled by your failure to install Fruit and Bright.
I suggest this:
1) Delete ChessGUI and make new clean installation.
2) Install Fruit as UCI2
3) Install Bright as UCI2
4) Tell us if that worked.

What is your OS ? and how much RAM is installed ?

Matthias.

[Spock]

Sam, it may take a little while to get used to how things are done in this GUI. As you will know all GUIs are different - for example when I first used Shredder GUI I thought it was confusing and hated it. Then I grew to love it. When I first looked at ChessGUI, the number of configuration options was overwhelming, but I then realised I could just ignore most of them. And I grew to love it as well, in particular all the information it gives you - the "Infos" tab where you can immediately see how many moves away from the 50 move rule for example, the results tab where you can see how each game was terminated and after how many moves, etc etc. Native support for both UCI and WB. Support for XFen and Shredder FEN for chess960. For engine matches and tournaments, it is now the GUI I use in preference to all others and has been for some time. For infinite analysis of positions though, I use Shredder GUI. I'm not sure ChessGUI does that