M1 Apple Silicon for Chess?

[cpeters]

That will never happen unless you count software rendering (i.e. no graphics acceleration) as even somewhat decent

I wouldn't say never, but a year wont fit, yes. You're right probably.

[cpeters]

It is stable and fast, but there aren't M1 IDE and UCI chess engines available until now.

This I do not understand. Don't they have got things in the repository? And compiling some engines should often be simple, no?

[AlexChess]

It is stable and fast, but there aren't M1 IDE and UCI chess engines available until now.

This I do not understand. Don't they have got things in the repository? And compiling some engines should often be simple, no?

Ubuntu ARM64 lacks also of a good chess IDE like banksiaGui or Cutechess. For open sources I prefer to use Acepoint's native M1 compiled engines and, if it isn't released the source (Raubfisch, Fisherov, Killfish, Zeus, Eman, AI-15, Alpha Subzero and Fat Fritz 2.0 in Stockfish) I run them in Windows 10 ARM64 under Parallels M1.

[jshriver]

That will never happen unless you count software rendering (i.e. no graphics acceleration) as even somewhat decent. Apple will not support any OSS driver development because they want a locked and closed system.

Would be nice if they release a blob though,like how nvidia does for linux. It's not OSS but works great.

[jshriver]

Ubuntu ARM64 lacks also of a good chess IDE like banksiaGui or Cutechess.

Cutechess runs on ubuntu arm64, I have it running on my Pi 4 right now doing some engine tests.

[Steppenwolf]

Dear Acepoint,

thank you for providing the mac-Community with macOS builds.

Please can you add on your homepage also the macOS (Big Sur; 11.2.3) for CuteChess for Intel processors?
I do not have the lastest M1 Mac.

Thanks in advance,
Steppenwolf

[Ras]

Would be nice if they release a blob though,like how nvidia does for linux. It's not OSS but works great.

It doesn't actually work great because this way needs vendor support upon kernel upgrades. The consequence is that once the manufacturer stops caring about your particular model, you will be stuck with an old kernel version. No distro upgrades anymore, hence increasingly outdated application versions, and then even without security updates. The solution is not to buy from such manufacturers if you intend to go Linux, and to vote with one's wallet.

[AlexChess]

Ubuntu ARM64 lacks also of a good chess IDE like banksiaGui or Cutechess.

Cutechess runs on ubuntu arm64, I have it running on my Pi 4 right now doing some engine tests.

Wow! So you have bought an M1 mac! Don't worry for hardware issues of first generation, there is a workaround for all:

1) Install Big Sur on external SSD to avoid internal corruption due to eccessive usage.
2) Kernel panics are related to Thunderbolt monitors, USB 3.0 HUBs and Bluetooth interferences (I suspect low magic mouse batteries are causing my crashes *probable overflow searchng mouse*, since it happens when moving mouse in Windows 10 ARM ON Parallels Desktop M1 and not with batteries fully charged...)
3) Monitor your CPU temperatures while using native mac M1 engines!

But Apple Silicon M1 deserves sacrifices also being a (paying) betatester... It's the future!

PS: Could you please try to compile Stockfish 13 dev + FF2 embedded native for mac M1?
https://www.chess2u.com/t16869-stockfish_ff2#103930

Regards, AlexChess

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

Ubuntu ARM64 lacks also of a good chess IDE like banksiaGui or Cutechess.

Cutechess runs on ubuntu arm64, I have it running on my Pi 4 right now doing some engine tests.

Wow! So you have bought an M1 mac!

Doesn't he say he got a Raspberry Pi?

1) Install Big Sur on external SSD to avoid internal corruption due to eccessive usage.

Seems to be limited to a few 8G machines where people are running apps that won't fit in RAM and swap. It's the same on Linux if you use it that way.

2) Kernel panics are related to Thunderbolt monitors, USB 3.0 HUBs and Bluetooth interferences (I suspect low magic mouse batteries are causing my crashes *probable overflow searchng mouse*, since it happens when moving mouse in Windows 10 ARM ON Parallels Desktop M1 and not with batteries fully charged...)

That sucks. The only bug I ran into so far is the "suddenly screensaver" one, but I know we've had to report some kernel crashes, so they have work to do there.

3) Monitor your CPU temperatures while using native mac M1 engines!

Why would you care how hot it runs? Temperature monitoring is useful for 5 minutes if you build a PC and install the cooler yourself to make sure it's working, but after that no-one should give a hoot how hot their chips run (Mac or AMD or Intel). You can get maybe 25MHz extra out of it at the cost of making the cooling noisier. Not a very worthwhile tradeoff.

[AlexChess]

Doesn't he say he got a Raspberry Pi?

...True ...Luckily I can try Cutechess on Ubuntu ARM64 on Parallels. I hope that Stockfish will be available.

1) Install Big Sur on external SSD to avoid internal corruption due to eccessive usage.

Seems to be limited to a few 8G machines where people are running apps that won't fit in RAM and swap. It's the same on Linux if you use it that way.

No, people are reporting it also with 16GB RAM and 2TB SSD and also Acepoint here is confirming this issue: 79TB writed and 3% of SSD life already lost.

https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1361175101283074048

2) Kernel panics are related to Thunderbolt monitors, USB 3.0 HUBs and Bluetooth interferences (I suspect low magic mouse batteries are causing my crashes *probable overflow searchng mouse*, since it happens when moving mouse in Windows 10 ARM ON Parallels Desktop M1 and not with batteries fully charged...)

That sucks. The only bug I ran into so far is the "suddenly screensaver" one, but I know we've had to report some kernel crashes, so they have work to do there.

3) Monitor your CPU temperatures while using native mac M1 engines!

Why would you care how hot it runs? Temperature monitoring is useful for 5 minutes if you build a PC and install the cooler yourself to make sure it's working, but after that no-one should give a hoot how hot their chips run (Mac or AMD or Intel). You can get maybe 25MHz extra out of it at the cost of making the cooling noisier. Not a very worthwhile tradeoff.

91° Celsius with BanksiaGui engines/engines matches after only 10 minutes ...Just a little worried