desperate HELP needed for a chess gui
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:01 pm
Hy all.
I am a computer chess enthusiast and decent player from italy, my name michele.
Since some month i am collaborating with a spanish programmer to improve its software, LUCASCHESS.
LC is cute gui, with many features, some of them not available even in commercial ones (LC is completely free); and many other new features are already coming soon.
My "job" is to make some tests, discover bugs, propose improvements while he is the one to put these ideas in practice (into code, actually).
What i do is completely for free, just for love of chess; i believe i am not the only one to do this, among talkchessers.
I have had a cute idea but to carry it on i need that somebody of you, able to write and modify engines, help me!!!
My target is to create, using an engine, a lot of simulations of great champions of the present and the past and also many imaginary virtual players: the more configurable is the engine, the more precise result i can get (i studied over 15000 games, so i have a very precise idea about champions' styles).
I am officially kindly asking to some of the most famous chess programmers to help me, but any "other" help is very welcome: it is a bit rude to call a specific name, but i have recognized most of the big names...
From the very start of its appearance, LUCASCHESS has had as main target to be a superlight gui, both in terms of ram used and cpu load.
And here is what i need exactly: modern good engines when running at full power are already stronger than any existing human player, so actually i dont need simply a permission to include that x engine inside LC (and after all LC is designed mainly for beginners and club players, to improve).
A beginner, a club player, even a master doesnt need to play vs a software that is stronger than 2300-2400.
So this is my idea: might you add a nodes-per-second limitation (and the proper parameter to set via uci panel), in order to weaken an engine?
For example, if i set 10000 nodes per second, most engines will still play very well (about like a strong fide master), but at this speed any modern cpu will not even used at 2 or 3%.
If i set 500 nodes per second, most engines will likely play like a strong club player, and naturally the load over cpu is almost undetectable...
Vladmir medvedev, author of greko, and Pawel Koziol and Edmund Moshammer, authors of glass, already did it for me but i need the maximum variety.
This idea has two big advantages compared to other systems: not only it saves old hardwares from overheating, but also any imaginary playing personality will have the same strength in different hardwares (users) as...say 1000 nodes per second are always 1000!
I dont think this is difficult: just a system that limits the number of nodes that the engine calculates every second, then for the majority of the time actually the engine will do nothing but remain idle, waiting for the next cicle of calcs in order to respect to value set.
I dont think this is difficult, for you at least.
Not only: if you decide to help me and LC, we have a further request; personally we think that the idea to recall style parameters from ini files is not that comfortable for users and it would be much better if all parameters were available in the uci window (though this is a minor problem).
If you decide to help us, it's useless to say that you will named as a contributor both in the site and in some menĂ¹ of LC.
You are invited to dowload last release of LC, and see what i am talking about.
I think i explained all stuff decently, but if anyway you wish more details, any of you are welcome to mail me.
Aloha.
I am a computer chess enthusiast and decent player from italy, my name michele.
Since some month i am collaborating with a spanish programmer to improve its software, LUCASCHESS.
LC is cute gui, with many features, some of them not available even in commercial ones (LC is completely free); and many other new features are already coming soon.
My "job" is to make some tests, discover bugs, propose improvements while he is the one to put these ideas in practice (into code, actually).
What i do is completely for free, just for love of chess; i believe i am not the only one to do this, among talkchessers.
I have had a cute idea but to carry it on i need that somebody of you, able to write and modify engines, help me!!!
My target is to create, using an engine, a lot of simulations of great champions of the present and the past and also many imaginary virtual players: the more configurable is the engine, the more precise result i can get (i studied over 15000 games, so i have a very precise idea about champions' styles).
I am officially kindly asking to some of the most famous chess programmers to help me, but any "other" help is very welcome: it is a bit rude to call a specific name, but i have recognized most of the big names...
From the very start of its appearance, LUCASCHESS has had as main target to be a superlight gui, both in terms of ram used and cpu load.
And here is what i need exactly: modern good engines when running at full power are already stronger than any existing human player, so actually i dont need simply a permission to include that x engine inside LC (and after all LC is designed mainly for beginners and club players, to improve).
A beginner, a club player, even a master doesnt need to play vs a software that is stronger than 2300-2400.
So this is my idea: might you add a nodes-per-second limitation (and the proper parameter to set via uci panel), in order to weaken an engine?
For example, if i set 10000 nodes per second, most engines will still play very well (about like a strong fide master), but at this speed any modern cpu will not even used at 2 or 3%.
If i set 500 nodes per second, most engines will likely play like a strong club player, and naturally the load over cpu is almost undetectable...
Vladmir medvedev, author of greko, and Pawel Koziol and Edmund Moshammer, authors of glass, already did it for me but i need the maximum variety.
This idea has two big advantages compared to other systems: not only it saves old hardwares from overheating, but also any imaginary playing personality will have the same strength in different hardwares (users) as...say 1000 nodes per second are always 1000!
I dont think this is difficult: just a system that limits the number of nodes that the engine calculates every second, then for the majority of the time actually the engine will do nothing but remain idle, waiting for the next cicle of calcs in order to respect to value set.
I dont think this is difficult, for you at least.
Not only: if you decide to help me and LC, we have a further request; personally we think that the idea to recall style parameters from ini files is not that comfortable for users and it would be much better if all parameters were available in the uci window (though this is a minor problem).
If you decide to help us, it's useless to say that you will named as a contributor both in the site and in some menĂ¹ of LC.
You are invited to dowload last release of LC, and see what i am talking about.
I think i explained all stuff decently, but if anyway you wish more details, any of you are welcome to mail me.
Aloha.