How much longer can 32 bit Chess Engines survive?

[AdminX]

Good Morning,

I was looking at the CCRL rating list today when this question came to my mind. How much longer can 32 bit Chess Engines survive in a fastly growing 64 bit world? I only see three 32 bit engines in the top ten. They were:

Rybka 3
Deep Fritz 11
Hiarcs 12

I also might add that Deep Fritz and Hiarcs are doing very well for 32 bit engines. Is there no limit as to how high a rating a 32 bit engine can score? 64 bit computer systems seem to finally be pushing there way into more and more consumer homes, and giving these engines more horse power every day.

[Onno Garms]

I fear much too long. At least as long as this commercial OS provider from Redmond sells its 32 bit OS in bundles with a 64 bit processor I've implemented my engine as a 64 bit engine from scratch and am currently thinking about 32 bit optimizations. And as long as Microwine only supports Rybka and Wine supports no 64 bit applications at all.

Aren't there any volunteers who take over the Microwine project to support the majority of 64 bit engines?

[Nimzovik]

Thank goodness I had the foresight to buy Win XP Pro 64 bit so long ago it is now finally paying off! I was in the cold for a long time. Now a days I just replace the MOBO processors Ram and Vid card. I never buy a new computer... Still don't know for sure if it is a good idea tho

[Dann Corbit]

I fear much too long. At least as long as this commercial OS provider from Redmond sells its 32 bit OS in bundles with a 64 bit processor I've implemented my engine as a 64 bit engine from scratch and am currently thinking about 32 bit optimizations. And as long as Microwine only supports Rybka and Wine supports no 64 bit applications at all.

Aren't there any volunteers who take over the Microwine project to support the majority of 64 bit engines?

It seems to me that it should be easy to make Linux versions of most chess engines. For the most part, they do nothing but math and simple character I/O.

[trojanfoe]

I fear much too long. At least as long as this commercial OS provider from Redmond sells its 32 bit OS in bundles with a 64 bit processor I've implemented my engine as a 64 bit engine from scratch and am currently thinking about 32 bit optimizations. And as long as Microwine only supports Rybka and Wine supports no 64 bit applications at all.

Aren't there any volunteers who take over the Microwine project to support the majority of 64 bit engines?

It seems to me that it should be easy to make Linux versions of most chess engines. For the most part, they do nothing but math and simple character I/O.

I have developed my engine under both Windows and Linux (32-bit and 64-bit) and have found it easier to implement under Linux due to poll() working correctly on both pipes and normal terminal input. Under Windows I have a dedicated thread sitting in ReadFile() 99.99% of the time as WaitForMulitpleObjects() doesn't work with anonymous pipes (I am not a fan of polling and prefer to have my external messages arrive in queues).

I reckon a port to MacOS would be trivial.

Cheers,
Andy

[hgm]

64-bit doesn't have any advantage for mailbox engines over 32-bits. In fact, it can be slightly detrimental. Only bitboard engines profit from 64-bit architecture (and only when the board is not larger than 8x8). But that is of course because bitboard is horrendously slow on 32-bit, and then upgrades to medium slow on 64-bit...

[Uri Blass]

Good Morning,

I was looking at the CCRL rating list today when this question came to my mind. How much longer can 32 bit Chess Engines survive in a fastly growing 64 bit world? I only see three 32 bit engines in the top ten. They were:

Rybka 3
Deep Fritz 11
Hiarcs 12

I also might add that Deep Fritz and Hiarcs are doing very well for 32 bit engines. Is there no limit as to how high a rating a 32 bit engine can score? 64 bit computer systems seem to finally be pushing there way into more and more consumer homes, and giving these engines more horse power every day.

Rybka is a 64 bit engine but the number of bits is unimportant because rybka 32 bit is stronger than every 64 bit engine.

Uri

[AdminX]

Good Morning,

I was looking at the CCRL rating list today when this question came to my mind. How much longer can 32 bit Chess Engines survive in a fastly growing 64 bit world? I only see three 32 bit engines in the top ten. They were:

Rybka 3
Deep Fritz 11
Hiarcs 12

I also might add that Deep Fritz and Hiarcs are doing very well for 32 bit engines. Is there no limit as to how high a rating a 32 bit engine can score? 64 bit computer systems seem to finally be pushing there way into more and more consumer homes, and giving these engines more horse power every day.

Rybka is a 64 bit engine but the number of bits is unimportant because rybka 32 bit is stronger than every 64 bit engine.

Uri

Yes, but I was talking about 32 bit Rybka here.

[trojanfoe]

64-bit doesn't have any advantage for mailbox engines over 32-bits. In fact, it can be slightly detrimental. Only bitboard engines profit from 64-bit architecture (and only when the board is not larger than 8x8). But that is of course because bitboard is horrendously slow on 32-bit, and then upgrades to medium slow on 64-bit...

Why do you say that bitboards are medium slow under 64-bit? I understood they were faster than anything else as they allow multiple pieces (of the same type) to be manipulated using very few machine language instructions?

Cheers,
Andy

[Uri Blass]

Good Morning,

I was looking at the CCRL rating list today when this question came to my mind. How much longer can 32 bit Chess Engines survive in a fastly growing 64 bit world? I only see three 32 bit engines in the top ten. They were:

Rybka 3
Deep Fritz 11
Hiarcs 12

I also might add that Deep Fritz and Hiarcs are doing very well for 32 bit engines. Is there no limit as to how high a rating a 32 bit engine can score? 64 bit computer systems seem to finally be pushing there way into more and more consumer homes, and giving these engines more horse power every day.

Rybka is a 64 bit engine but the number of bits is unimportant because rybka 32 bit is stronger than every 64 bit engine.

Uri

Yes, but I was talking about 32 bit Rybka here.

In this case Naum4 also can be included because it is stronger than
Deep Fritz 11 or Hiarcs 12.

32 bit rybka is also based on bitboard and if the subject is not bitboard or not bitboard then every 64 bit program has 32 bit program that is slightly weaker.

Uri