The future of computer chess

[Vinvin]

With the new 68000 cpu richard lang was capable to program a very strong engine in assembler.
And with the use of 68020 or 68030 and the increase of the mhz from 12 to 33 or 66 or even 133 mhz
the software was made faster.

The next big step was that the pcs made progress from a few mhz into much more mhz.
We remember 8086, 286, 386, 486-33, 486-66 and more. Then came pentiums much more speed.
And one day we had cpus with 2 cores, then with 4 cores and the race continues,

Today we have very fast cpus with lot memory, high speed and several cores,

So how big was the software progress that was not due to big hardware progress ?

Someone posted a study around a cpouple of years ago about progress : I remember : Chess computers improved by around 1800 Elo in 30 years : 1200 Elo due to software and 600 Elo due to hardware, so in average +40 elo/year and + 20 elo/year.
forum3/viewtopic.php?p=851253#p851253
Here's the study : forum3/viewtopic.php?p=703278#p703278

[mclane]

Yes but the 2 programs have nothing to do with each other.

[chrisw]

With the new 68000 cpu richard lang was capable to program a very strong engine in assembler.
And with the use of 68020 or 68030 and the increase of the mhz from 12 to 33 or 66 or even 133 mhz
the software was made faster.

The next big step was that the pcs made progress from a few mhz into much more mhz.
We remember 8086, 286, 386, 486-33, 486-66 and more. Then came pentiums much more speed.
And one day we had cpus with 2 cores, then with 4 cores and the race continues,

Today we have very fast cpus with lot memory, high speed and several cores,

So how big was the software progress that was not due to big hardware progress ?

Someone posted a study around a cpouple of years ago about progress : I remember : Chess computers improved by around 1800 Elo in 30 years : 1200 Elo due to software and 600 Elo due to hardware, so in average +40 elo/year and + 20 elo/year.
forum3/viewtopic.php?p=851253#p851253
Here's the study : forum3/viewtopic.php?p=703278#p703278

Prefer a three way split, improvements due to software algorithms, improvements due to hardware speed, improvements due to software algorithms made possible by memory increases (which is a form of hardware improvement).

[Rebel]

A fourth one, volume testing. It was invented by Christophe Theron (Chess Tiger), he had 2 poor Pentium 90's, he could do 2 bullet test runs of 800 games a day which put him on top for about ~2 years. The idea was adopted by Vasik Rajlich (Rybka) who had much better hardware, the idea leaked by phishing Vasik Rajlich and is now in use by everybody.