Arasan 24.1

[jdart]

Hi Jon,

I have no idea what is wrong with Arasan 24.1 or my configuration.

When I compare NPS, Arasan 24.1 is a bit faster than Arasan 24.0 ... first look ... all is OK.
But when I compare the depth ... the depth is clearly higher from Arasan 24.0. Depth 21 (v24.1) to depth 24-25 (v24.0) after 5-6 seconds.

Simply test:
1. h2-h3 and compare the depth between the two versions.

I do this because after about 75 games the performance in my blitz tournament against new releases is 33%. But I expect much more than 60%. Something is wrong and I can't find any error in my configuration.

I'll do some looking to see if there is some performance issue with 24.1. However, I'm not too worried about it because the game results look ok to me. I mostly test on Linux, but I did a test with cutechess-cli on Windows (avx2 build) and I am getting a small advantage for 24.1, as expected (still running, 850 games so far).

[jdart]

1200 games, 2:0+1 on Windows. Not quite as good a result as I had on Linux:
... Arasan24.1 playing White: 123 - 50 - 427 [0.561] 600
... Arasan24.1 playing Black: 63 - 83 - 454 [0.483] 600
... White vs Black: 206 - 113 - 881 [0.539] 1200
Elo difference: 15.4 +/- 10.1, LOS: 99.8 %, DrawRatio: 73.4 %

[peter]

Thanks for the new version, Jon!
Position- learning still doesn't work in UCI nor in WinBoard, does it?
It does in xboard- mode (e.g. cutechess), regards

It does not work under UCI - that is still a to-do item. It should work under Winboard if you are using the engine in CECP mode (the default).

Installing in Winboard- mode in Arena doesn't create .lrn- file, not as Winboard nor as "old Winboard"- engine. In Shredder Winboard- installation does create .lrn, only go infinite isn't supported ( error message illegal command at start of analyis mode by GUI), which I don't miss so much because automatic backward- analysis yet does work anyhow.
Thanks again, regards

[chessica]

Thanks for the new version, Jon!
Position- learning still doesn't work in UCI nor in WinBoard, does it?
It does in xboard- mode (e.g. cutechess), regards

It does not work under UCI - that is still a to-do item. It should work under Winboard if you are using the engine in CECP mode (the default).

Installing in Winboard- mode in Arena doesn't create .lrn- file, not as Winboard nor as "old Winboard"- engine. In Shredder Winboard- installation does create .lrn, only go infinite isn't supported ( error message illegal command at start of analyis mode by GUI), which I don't miss so much because automatic backward- analysis yet does work anyhow.
Thanks again, regards

Please read and edit the *.rc file Pit

[peter]

Thanks for the new version, Jon!
Position- learning still doesn't work in UCI nor in WinBoard, does it?
It does in xboard- mode (e.g. cutechess), regards

It does not work under UCI - that is still a to-do item. It should work under Winboard if you are using the engine in CECP mode (the default).

Just one more question about arasan.lrn: what happens to it, if several concurrencies of the engine are using it at same time? Does it get fragmented (as it's known from experience- files of learning SF- branches)?

[jdart]

Just one more question about arasan.lrn: what happens to it, if several concurrencies of the engine are using it at same time? Does it get fragmented (as it's known from experience- files of learning SF- branches)?

The file is opened only in append mode, but it is possible you could still get bad behavior with multiple processes writing to the same file: the code isn't really written to support this. When I run concurrent matches, for example with cutechess-cli, I have learning turned off, which I would recommend as a best practice. Or create multiple engine directories so each can have its own arasan.lrn.

[peter]

Just one more question about arasan.lrn: what happens to it, if several concurrencies of the engine are using it at same time? Does it get fragmented (as it's known from experience- files of learning SF- branches)?

The file is opened only in append mode, but it is possible you could still get bad behavior with multiple processes writing to the same file: the code isn't really written to support this. When I run concurrent matches, for example with cutechess-cli, I have learning turned off, which I would recommend as a best practice. Or create multiple engine directories so each can have its own arasan.lrn.

Thanks again, Jon!

[Peter Berger]

Arasan is a nice chess program. But the setup is kind of complicated. I couldnt even edit the arasan.rc file as it was write-protected on a windows system in a way that was not easy to overcome. Also the syzygy files are at a modern named place that I can't give the path to.

Can you give some more information, especially about the second issue? What was the pathname?

Actually I couldn't even resolve the first one, I never managed to get arasan.rc to be writeable.
When It is about the syzygy path, I did some kind of default install of the tablebases into the Fritz GUI. Engines that get this information from the GUI do work fine.
The path that is given in the GUI, sth like C:\users\peter\OneDrive\ChessBase\bases doesn't even exist on my computer (there is sth like C:\benutzer..)
So I assume some enviroment variables may be used here. Then there is also the issue of hiding the "\" ( I used to know how to do these things ages ago).

At least in my case this could still be helped by a change in Arasan (else I wouldn't have posted). It seems most other engines just get their tablebase path from the GUI - and this was easy to setup. So I assume you'd make the life of a lot of simpleton users easier if you did the same.

Thanks for your engine - it is simply amazing to see how much Arasan has improved over the years.

Peter

[RubiChess]

The path that is given in the GUI, sth like C:\users\peter\OneDrive\ChessBase\bases doesn't even exist on my computer (there is sth like C:\benutzer..)

This is just Windows Explorer showing translated names for several folders.
Open the "Benutzer" folder in Explorer and click into the address line below the menu then you will see the real folder name c:\Users

Some more informations about it here

[jdart]

When using the Fritz GUI, you should set the tablebase path in the GUI, and that should override anything set in arasan.rc.