AndrewGrant wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:08 am
Hello all. Today I am releasing the final version of Ethereal, version 12.75, and ending development. I'm also releasing a fork of Ethereal, Etherlito, which allows for using an NNUE network. The updated Ethereal has a massive elo gain of +43, compared to the previous gain of +17 from 12.25 to 12.50. This is largely due to my own innovative Pawn+King Neural Network, and Rook+Pawn+King Endgame Neural Network. Neither Network is "Updated Incrementally", and has absolutely no connection to Stockfish, Leela, or AlphaZero.
I've forked Ethereal to
Etherlito, which will not be seeing any support or further commits. This allows you to place a weight file in the /src/ directory named "weights.nn", and compile. To make people happy, I've pasted a Stockfish net into the repo. One can compile out of the box, probably. You maybe have to play with the Makefile if you don't have a modern CPU.
Using various Networks, I am able to beat Stockfish 11 in a 500 game match by over +50 elo. Chess is dead. I'm not providing binaries for this, as Etherlito is the only code I've written in the last 6 years that I am ashamed of. I want everyone to know just how easy this was.
2 hours, 25 minutes. That is the time it took me to start by opening a tab to look at CFish, and to end by pushing a working version. Congrats to Stockfish for the incredible achievement. My middle finger to everyone else using it.
Binaries for Windows & Android (ARMv7, ARMv8) can be found here. As always, it is highly preferable for you to compile your own binary on your machine. A simple "make", or "make pext" (for those with Intel machines supporting the BMI2 instruction set), should produce a binary as fast and likely faster than the ones I provide. Of course, test it to be sure.
I'm likely to continue maintaining the OpenBench server's for the near future. However, I'm leaving the Computer Chess Development world, (although I'll be next door doing some work around Chess.com). Hopefully someone will take over if they are interested, or if Noobpwnftw cares to he can always host it.
Thanks to all of the old guard on these forums. I learned almost everything I know about chess, computer chess, and even programming in the pursuit of Ethereal. I got damn near the top. If you toss Houdini and Fire, I held the #3 spot in the world for a year. A testament to my obsession, and to the support of this community.
I'm not sure what to say as a closer. I can't find words to thank the many members of CCC for their contributions over the decades. I've been apart of the community for 6 years, but I don't see a future in this hobby. By this time next year, I expect to see Stockfish, Leela, and a bunch of forks or clones or near copy-paste jobs of them. Good luck. A republic, if you can keep it.
A wise man, one of the few true friends I've ever had, told me this:
"fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra"