Komodo Dragon 3 Released by KomodoChess

[Graham Banks]

Dragon by Komodo 3 64-bit Gauntlet for CCRL 40/15 live - https://tlcv.net/16073

[Werewolf]

Presumably, the M1 build of Dragon 3 wouldn't run in Windows running on Parallels running on the Mac?

[Fritz 0]

Got it. Can't wait to start playing.

[mjlef]

Komodo Dragon 3 is now available at komodochess.com.

Why is there still no Android-binary (Armv8, which we can use in Droidfish for example) in the download? For a commercial release, this is not good. Stockfish 15 has it. And is free.

This sounds like a simple question, but the answer is rather complex. I will try and simplify it to a couple of reasons:

a. Google has changed android in recent versions to improve its security. Once of these changes is disallowing an existing program from communicating with or loading a external program. Many of the Android Chess GUI programs are not programmed to allow access to all the UCI options in Dragon. This means user's cannot set "Use MCTS" mode or "Use Regular Eval" mode within the those chess GUIs. Which would be a sucky user experience. Before the changes, our solution was to have the engine in an android app we wrote that could communicate with the chess GUI. This lets our app give access to all UCI options in Dragon/Komodo so the user could set them there. But the recent Android changes disable that. Well, what about Droidfish? Although we could take the Droidfish GUI code and insert the Dragon engine code in it to bypass the recent Android changes since it would be all in the same app, the GPL for Droidfish would require us to release all our source code, effectively giving away our engine.

b. We are a commercial product and we need to protect it. If we cannot sell it, we cannot buy or rent computers for testing, pay someone to run the website, or buy other hardware for training (literally billions and billions of positions to store and train on).....

We are still looking for some solution to these issues. If you have ideas, let us know.

Mark

[Fritz 0]

Well, I played 6 games vs. Elo 2000 and result is 3-3 (3 wins, 3 losses). I played very badly, but it's definitely stronger and more human-like than Dragon 2.6. at this level. Or maybe the right description would be "more unpleasant for a human". The opening book was Fritz 16 set to "normal" and almost in each game it chose less frequent and tricky lines, at least for me.

Larry, have you played vs. Elo 2200-2250? What's your experience?

[pohl4711]

Komodo Dragon 3 is now available at komodochess.com.

Why is there still no Android-binary (Armv8, which we can use in Droidfish for example) in the download? For a commercial release, this is not good. Stockfish 15 has it. And is free.

This sounds like a simple question, but the answer is rather complex. I will try and simplify it to a couple of reasons:

a. Google has changed android in recent versions to improve its security. Once of these changes is disallowing an existing program from communicating with or loading a external program. Many of the Android Chess GUI programs are not programmed to allow access to all the UCI options in Dragon. This means user's cannot set "Use MCTS" mode or "Use Regular Eval" mode within the those chess GUIs. Which would be a sucky user experience. Before the changes, our solution was to have the engine in an android app we wrote that could communicate with the chess GUI. This lets our app give access to all UCI options in Dragon/Komodo so the user could set them there. But the recent Android changes disable that. Well, what about Droidfish? Although we could take the Droidfish GUI code and insert the Dragon engine code in it to bypass the recent Android changes since it would be all in the same app, the GPL for Droidfish would require us to release all our source code, effectively giving away our engine.

b. We are a commercial product and we need to protect it. If we cannot sell it, we cannot buy or rent computers for testing, pay someone to run the website, or buy other hardware for training (literally billions and billions of positions to store and train on).....

We are still looking for some solution to these issues. If you have ideas, let us know.

Mark

I can not speak about KomodoDragon in Droidfish, because there is no KD on Android. But moving any Android-compiled uci-Engine in the uci-folder of Droidfish, the engine runs in Droidfish and all uci-options of the engine can be set. So, an Android-release of KD3 with a recommendation in a ReadMe-file for using it in Droidfish, only and all is fine - and definitly no need, to share any KD-SourceCode. If anybody uses the engine in another AndroidGUI and gets problems - so what? Its not your fault, that there are bad GUIs out there on Android. There is a lot of bad software out there on Android (and on windows, too). That is no reason, not to use the good software.

[Krzysztof Grzelak]

Gentlemen of Komodo, when will there be free versions to download Komodo Dragon.

[Guenther]

Gentlemen of Komodo, when will there be free versions to download Komodo Dragon.

forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=79738&start=10#p925091

"Larry K.: I don't anticipate making any Dragon versions free in the foreseeable future, unless something makes NNUE obsolete."

[mjlef]

Komodo Dragon 3 is now available at komodochess.com.

Why is there still no Android-binary (Armv8, which we can use in Droidfish for example) in the download? For a commercial release, this is not good. Stockfish 15 has it. And is free.

This sounds like a simple question, but the answer is rather complex. I will try and simplify it to a couple of reasons:

a. Google has changed android in recent versions to improve its security. Once of these changes is disallowing an existing program from communicating with or loading a external program. Many of the Android Chess GUI programs are not programmed to allow access to all the UCI options in Dragon. This means user's cannot set "Use MCTS" mode or "Use Regular Eval" mode within the those chess GUIs. Which would be a sucky user experience. Before the changes, our solution was to have the engine in an android app we wrote that could communicate with the chess GUI. This lets our app give access to all UCI options in Dragon/Komodo so the user could set them there. But the recent Android changes disable that. Well, what about Droidfish? Although we could take the Droidfish GUI code and insert the Dragon engine code in it to bypass the recent Android changes since it would be all in the same app, the GPL for Droidfish would require us to release all our source code, effectively giving away our engine.

b. We are a commercial product and we need to protect it. If we cannot sell it, we cannot buy or rent computers for testing, pay someone to run the website, or buy other hardware for training (literally billions and billions of positions to store and train on).....

We are still looking for some solution to these issues. If you have ideas, let us know.

Mark

I can not speak about KomodoDragon in Droidfish, because there is no KD on Android. But moving any Android-compiled uci-Engine in the uci-folder of Droidfish, the engine runs in Droidfish and all uci-options of the engine can be set. So, an Android-release of KD3 with a recommendation in a ReadMe-file for using it in Droidfish, only and all is fine - and definitly no need, to share any KD-SourceCode. If anybody uses the engine in another AndroidGUI and gets problems - so what? Its not your fault, that there are bad GUIs out there on Android. There is a lot of bad software out there on Android (and on windows, too). That is no reason, not to use the good software.

A bare executable would be entirely unprotected. Anyone could share it with others and piss off customers who paid for the.engine.

[Fritz 0]

And another unexpected thing - in a 1500 game match Dragon 3 Elo 2600 (which should be accurate as verified by GM Lenderman) lost to Komodo 14.1 level 23 by 209 ELo! Even compressed by 25% it is still over 150 Elo difference. Is it possible that Komodo 14.1 level 23 is 2750 rapid?!