Orion 1.0 release

Discussion of anything and everything relating to chess playing software and machines.

Moderators: hgm, chrisw, Rebel

David Carteau
Posts: 131
Joined: Sat May 24, 2014 9:09 am
Location: France
Full name: David Carteau

Orion 1.0 release

Post by David Carteau »

I'm very happy to announce the release of Orion 1.0, a new version of my little chess engine !

This version includes:
  • a neural network trained "from zero", using only game results (1-0, 0-1, 1/2-1/2) and material as labels and targets ;
  • quantization of weights and biases, resulting in a 40% increase in nps (nodes per second) !
  • a completely rewritten Cerebrum library, allowing anyone to reproduce my work and obtain exactly the same neural network from the same data ;
  • a minor change, with a default Transposition Table size of 256 Mb (previously 128 Mb).

While the new version may be weaker than the previous one (approximately 100 elo), what mattered to me was no longer relying on evaluations from other engines for training data. I'm really happy to get such decent performance in a original and reproductible way !


I also put a lot of efforts on the Cerebrum library:
  • you now only need to provide PGN file(s) - or a handcrafted set of positions - and launch 2 scripts : everything is automated !
  • you can customize the network’s name and the author’s name embedded in the network
  • additionally, a basic UCI chess engine called “Cerebrum” is provided to demonstrate how to load and use trained networks in a real engine (Python)

Please note that Orion's URL has changed a few months ago and is now https://www.orionchess.com/

Feel free to share your feedback !

Kind regards from France,

David
Download the Orion chess engine --- Train your NNUE with the Cerebrum library --- Contribute to the Nostradamus experiment !
matejst
Posts: 366
Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 8:20 pm
Full name: Boban Stanojević

Re: Orion 1.0 release

Post by matejst »

Merci, David. Je m'étais mis à penser que vous aviez terminé ce projet. Eh, oui, espérons que la prochaine version d'Orion arrivera beaucoup plus vite que celle-ci!
Wolfgang
Posts: 949
Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 1:08 am

Re: Orion 1.0 release

Post by Wolfgang »

David Carteau wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2024 6:54 am I'm very happy to announce the release of Orion 1.0, a new version of my little chess engine !

This version includes:
  • a neural network trained "from zero", using only game results (1-0, 0-1, 1/2-1/2) and material as labels and targets ;
  • quantization of weights and biases, resulting in a 40% increase in nps (nodes per second) !
  • a completely rewritten Cerebrum library, allowing anyone to reproduce my work and obtain exactly the same neural network from the same data ;
  • a minor change, with a default Transposition Table size of 256 Mb (previously 128 Mb).

While the new version may be weaker than the previous one (approximately 100 elo), what mattered to me was no longer relying on evaluations from other engines for training data. I'm really happy to get such decent performance in a original and reproductible way !


I also put a lot of efforts on the Cerebrum library:
  • you now only need to provide PGN file(s) - or a handcrafted set of positions - and launch 2 scripts : everything is automated !
  • you can customize the network’s name and the author’s name embedded in the network
  • additionally, a basic UCI chess engine called “Cerebrum” is provided to demonstrate how to load and use trained networks in a real engine (Python)

Please note that Orion's URL has changed a few months ago and is now https://www.orionchess.com/

Feel free to share your feedback !

Kind regards from France,

David
https://cegt.forumieren.com/t2141-testi ... 1-0nn#3888
Best
Wolfgang
CEGT-Team
www.cegt.net
www.cegt.forumieren.com
David Carteau
Posts: 131
Joined: Sat May 24, 2014 9:09 am
Location: France
Full name: David Carteau

Re: Orion 1.0 release

Post by David Carteau »

Many thanks Wolfgang ! I hope the results will be good :)
Download the Orion chess engine --- Train your NNUE with the Cerebrum library --- Contribute to the Nostradamus experiment !