Time losses with Surprise

[metax]

Hello,

I'd really like to test more with Surprise because it is of approximately the same strength as ChessMind currently (probably a little stronger). However, I find one thing a bit annoying. Although I don't use hyperspeed timecontrols (because ChessMind scores _extremely_ bad at hyperspeed) Surprise regularly loses on time if the game is not decided earlier. This distorts the results. Is this bug known, Sven? Could you maybe release a bugfix?

[Sven]

Hello,

I'd really like to test more with Surprise because it is of approximately the same strength as ChessMind currently (probably a little stronger). However, I find one thing a bit annoying. Although I don't use hyperspeed timecontrols (because ChessMind scores _extremely_ bad at hyperspeed) Surprise regularly loses on time if the game is not decided earlier. This distorts the results. Is this bug known, Sven? Could you maybe release a bugfix?

Hi Luca,

up to now I have never heard about frequent losses on time of "Surprise". It plays in CCRL, WBEC, ChessWar and other tournaments and tests for a couple of years now, so I'm a bit surprised

The other bad news for you is that I currently do not intend to provide any bugfixes for this old engine since I'm in the middle of developing a new one (which will take a lot of more time, though).

Nevertheless, I am interested in clearing this case since it is definitely possible that there is still some time management bug and I would at least like to know if there is a problem and what is wrong in the code.

So would you mind providing more details via E-Mail? You'll find my mail address on the Surprise web page. I would need this:

- exact version you are using;
- description of your hardware;
- GUI you are using;
- time conditions of games where time losses do occur at your site;
- mainHashSizeMB (in surprise.ini) - just for completeness, although I do not expect any influence on time losses by this setting;
- some games as PGN;
- for at least one of these games, a "winboard.debug" file would be very nice.

Sven

[Matthias Gemuh]

I have 1500 engines installed in ChessGUI.

Of the few that lose on time, several are versions of Surprise.

TC 1+1, 2+1


Matthias.

[Sven]

I have 1500 engines installed in ChessGUI.

Of the few that lose on time, several are versions of Surprise.

TC 1+1, 2+1


Matthias.

Could you tell me the exact versions, please? Otherwise a sentence "several are versions of Surprise" does not help me very much. Very old versions may have time control bugs. The most recent version is 4.3-beta13-JA released at 19-oct-2007.

Sven

[Matthias Gemuh]

I have 1500 engines installed in ChessGUI.

Of the few that lose on time, several are versions of Surprise.

TC 1+1, 2+1


Matthias.

Could you tell me the exact versions, please? Otherwise a sentence "several are versions of Surprise" does not help me very much. Very old versions may have time control bugs. The most recent version is 4.3-beta13-JA released at 19-oct-2007.

Sven

I don't have infos about the time losses now.
I use :

Code: Select all

Surprise 4.13
Surprise 4.16
Surprise 4.2.8
Surprise 4.22
Surprise 4.3b13
Surprise-4.1.2
Surprise-4.1.4
Surprise-4.1.5
Surprise-4.2.1
Surprise-4.20

Note that not every version of Arena is suitable for testing time managent.

Matthias.

[Sven]

I have 1500 engines installed in ChessGUI.

Of the few that lose on time, several are versions of Surprise.

TC 1+1, 2+1

Could you tell me the exact versions, please? Otherwise a sentence "several are versions of Surprise" does not help me very much. Very old versions may have time control bugs. The most recent version is 4.3-beta13-JA released at 19-oct-2007.

I don't have infos about the time losses now.
I use :

Code: Select all

Surprise 4.13
Surprise 4.16
Surprise 4.2.8
Surprise 4.22
Surprise 4.3b13
Surprise-4.1.2
Surprise-4.1.4
Surprise-4.1.5
Surprise-4.2.1
Surprise-4.20

4.13 == 4.1.3
4.16 == 4.1.6
4.22 == 4.2.2
4.20 == 4.2 ??

So far the correct naming, see also my website.

Please apologize that I will not care about any 4.1.x or 4.2.x versions of Surprise anymore, these are history and may or may not be buggy. There is only one single version which *may* be subject of interest, and that is the most recent one, 4.3b13 (4.3b13-JA build). As soon as I know more about the conditions causing that version of Surprise to lose on time I will have a look at it and decide what to do.

Sven

[metax]

I'm so sorry, I forgot this completely. I am using Surprise 4.3-beta13 (version number copied from your homepage, hope that helps ). I got time losses at 1+1, 1+2, but even 2+12. I'll send you a mail with some more information.