EGTB's accesed from the internet?

[Louis F]

There is a website http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&lang=en that has all 6-man EGTB (except for 5 against 1, which is trivial and unimportant) in which you can enter a maximum of 6 pieces (incl. kings and except for 5 vs. 1) and side to move and it will instantly give you the distance to mate or whether it’s a draw. But the total storage is roughly 1200 GB.

Now even if we build computers with every more capacious hard disks until we finally reach 1200 GB or more it would still take days to download all those files and if purchased it would probably come on a set of some250 to 300 DVD’s and there is no technology in the foreseeable future that would create a removable storage device with more capacity than a DVD. Also, it took me more than an hour to download just the nine DVD’s of ChessBase’s Fritz Endgame Turbo 3.

So instead of this, is there any way it is possible for a chess engine to be configured so that it can access EGTB’s from the internet such as the above website rather than your own hard disk? After all hard disks of 1200 GB are not likely to be available for at least a half-dozen years and even then 7-man EGTB’s would still be out of the question. A website’s capacity would seem to have a much larger limit than an individuals computer or the above website would not exist.

[bob]

You can easily do that. But the cost is prohibitive, in that the program will play so incredibly weakly because of the internet latency. Currently you do a probe and get an answer back in a few milliseconds. On the internet, multiply that by 100 or 1000, and it would absolutely kill the search speed.

[Sam Hull]

After all hard disks of 1200 GB are not likely to be available for at least a half-dozen years ...

USB 2.0 external drives of 1.5 terabytes and more are already available in the $500 range; e.g., this one.

-Sam-

[Dirt]

After all hard disks of 1200 GB are not likely to be available for at least a half-dozen years ...

USB 2.0 external drives of 1.5 terabytes and more are already available in the $500 range; e.g., this one.

-Sam-

Technically I believe that is two (or more) drives sold as a unit. Just recently a 1000 GB single drive was announced, so 1200 GB drives will probably be available fairly soon.

[Louis F]

I am pleased to find out that 1200 GB drives will probably be available fairly soon. But there will be the problem of installing all of them to your hard disk. A 250 DVD set is impratical and downloading all 3, 4, 5 and 6-man EGTB's from the internet would take days or weeks. Am I right about that?

43 GB on nine DVD's took me more than an hour to install. Does anyone know how long downloading 1200 GB from the internet would take?

[Uri Blass]

You can easily do that. But the cost is prohibitive, in that the program will play so incredibly weakly because of the internet latency. Currently you do a probe and get an answer back in a few milliseconds. On the internet, multiply that by 100 or 1000, and it would absolutely kill the search speed.

dependent on what you do.
There is no rule that you have to look at tablebases at every node.

A program may try to access the internet only when the root position is already tablebases position.

Uri

[Norm Pollock]

I'm waiting for a 1200GB stick drive.

It's amazing how much faster egtb access is when the files are on a stick drive. Currently the available 8GB, good enough for 5-man egtbs, costs around $74 (US).

[bob]

You can easily do that. But the cost is prohibitive, in that the program will play so incredibly weakly because of the internet latency. Currently you do a probe and get an answer back in a few milliseconds. On the internet, multiply that by 100 or 1000, and it would absolutely kill the search speed.

dependent on what you do.
There is no rule that you have to look at tablebases at every node.

A program may try to access the internet only when the root position is already tablebases position.

Uri

That's not going to win you many games. Many KRP vs KR endings are drawn, but some are winnable. How do you reach a winnable one, rather than a drawn one, if you rely on your program until you get into the position. Then it is too late.

EGTBs are not very useful if not used inside the search...

[bob]

I'm waiting for a 1200GB stick drive.

It's amazing how much faster egtb access is when the files are on a stick drive. Currently the available 8GB, good enough for 5-man egtbs, costs around $74 (US).

You should try raid-0 with good SCSI drives to see what real performance can do...

[eriq]

sata II may be just as good as scsi but cheaper.