Question to PicoChess Users and engine developers

[PeterO]

Hi friends,

I love to play with PicoChess on my DGT-BOARD!

In MY opinion its very intuitiv to use an engine there I can set the ELO strengt. If I have Elo 1900 I set the Elo strengh to
1900 Elo and play - SIMPLE.
Its NOT intuitive to use an engine that has different levels. How strong is level 4 on engine A - how strong is engine B on level 12?

1. Question: Which engines do you know where I can set the Elo strengh in PicoChess? (NOT LEVELS!!)
2. Question: Dear engine developers: Can you please change your engine. From Set the stengh via level - to Elo points?

Peter

[JohnW]

I totally agree with the need for a way to set engine strength by elo rating. A single drop down menu by elo rating that automatically sets all the other obscure settings would be much appreciated. Personally I have no desire to spend all kinds of time going through a read me file that tells me to raise this number to do this and lower this number to do that, make sure you set the memory amount to this etc etc.

[Scally]

Hi Peter,

There’s still a lot of Chess Engines that do not support Levels of any sort, so you can only play against it at full strength*. We can slightly increase or decrease their strength if they support Threads, so from Threads 1-4 on the RPi.

Those Engines that support Levels come in a variety depending on which UCI parameters they support:

Skill Level = xx normally 1 to 20

Strength = xx from 1 to 100%

UCI_LimitStrength = false / true - accompanied by UCI_Elo from the minimum to the maximum Elo of the Chess Engine

Handicap Level = xx, normally 1-20 similar to Skill Level

*There are other UCI parameters we can use to dampen the strength of an Engine, if the Engine supports it, like Slowmover = 0 or a low number.

*Within Picochess v3, Dirk has introduced a “SearchDepth” level in the Time settings, where you can select a depth of 1 to 25 ply. A search Depth of 1 will severely handicap any engine, forcing it to move immediately with a 1 ply search.

The engines.ini file shows all supported uci parameters for every engine.

Of our current Engines, the following support UCI_Elo, which is what your were asking:

Arasan
Galjoen
Crystal
CT800
McBrain
Rodent4
Stockfish (since Stockfish11)
Wasp

& Most of the NNUE engines

I may have missed some, just search the engines.ini file.

We can’t introduce UCI_Elo to those Engines that don’t support it, that’s where the Engine Authors come in.


Cheers,

Al.