From here i cannot see how serious you are and probably everyone who once swindled another person already shipped you an email to setup this tournament.Michael Sherwin wrote:If we can get Intel on board then maybe we can get uniformity which would be the ideal. The idea behind using the atom processor at least is to get everyone roughly on the same level and to make the level of hardware in reach of the most people. Anyone can pack a $200 1.6 GHz 8" notebook in their luggage! My goal is to get as many people to attend this event as possible because they do not feel hopelessly disadvantaged by poor relative hardware performance. Also I would like to see authors challenged to do better on lesser hardware and to squeeze more from less. I will at least make sure that there are extra machines available if they are needed.CThinker wrote:Do each participant have to bring their own Atom-equipped machines or will the site have them (for uniformity)?
For now it seems to me like another Skinner event. We shall see.
Let's never the less seriously discuss what you propose here.
There is in this forum some persons who have ties with intel and have newer 'beta' versions of that processor. Higher clocked, more cores.
Further it seems intel needs their i3+ cores to compete with the new chip from AMD that's danging away the atom.
We already know from the i3-i7 series it can clock 4Ghz easily,
and in case of a beta chip you will not see the difference between
an 'atom chip' that is a renamed i3 versus the real atom.
I have experience here with diep getting tested by good objevctive
testers at intel testmachines.
They get up to 20% more nps for diep than any similar setup i try
or some guys here in this forum try (the ones not working for intel that is).
It's similar for other manufacturers.
Sales from this platform are crucial to intel and AMD (amd of course had nothing so far but has something now that kicks butt).
So i wouldn't be amazed if th enext 'atom processor' is a renamed modified i3-i5 series with 4 cores or something similar and lower power, as the i* series still can beat the thing AMD offers.
Further there is overclockers and so on.
You are creating conditions here for people to really show up with the latest secret atom processor, without telling you, overclocked to 4Ghz,
which in case of being in fact an i3, it's going to be 4 times faster than todays atom processor.
You'll have to provide the hardware and more important also the time control at which the contest is. In 1997 they showed up with kryotech at -45C to cool single cpu alpha cpu's. They had beta cpu's 633Mhz overclocked to 767Mhz and also realize it was 64 bits, big advantage
for darkthought over a PC back then.
Other participants had the not yet released intel P2 at 300Mhz back then,
which already was a kick butt processor. But you see the difference between the hardware sponsored?
Blitz events at ugly slow processors like the atom is, is going to be not such a funny experience, as openingsbooks will dominate then.
1.6ghz atom processor at a faster time control if we compare it
with world champs 1999 where several participants had a 4 processor Xeon,whiuch clocked up to 500Mhz for some. I joined at bob's 400Mhz processor.
So you're basically going to give to each engine less cpu time per move,
than engines had in world champs 1999 (of course supercomputers you cannot compare with as you can't daily test at supers).
This is not a very clever contest to limit it in this manner.
If you want a hardware limit, pick hardware that's easily affordable.
Say a 6 core processor at 3.4Ghz max and in case the processor has turboboost capabilities you want confirmation it has been turned off in the bios.
Also write down which time control you want to play.
Tournament Openingsbooks are completely dominant at fast time controls
if you just play 1 or 2 games against an opponent.
Further a big problem i see in big tournaments is that having white in the crucial game is tournament decisive for the 2 engines at that point 'the best'.
$150k seems like a lot, by then probably it's 100k euro, a full year salary in case of some guys here, 2 year salaries for most of the clone guys.
What's the first price?
How about clone control?
If there is 100 rybka type clones, then an improved rybka is always going to win a contest of course. If you add 1 thing to rybka, you win every game based upon that from all those clones. If you have your own original engine, this is much tougher.
Vincent