Free mac chess programs?

[pavel]

really liking the Glaurung GUIand ofcourse the engine. I see that I can install UCI engine, off to finding some strong mac UCI engines. Any recommendation?

Mark Uniacke worked hard, buy Hiarcs 12 with a free upgrade to 12.1!

It's not expensive like your Mac and it's the strongest 32bit engine on the planet!

I wanted to get the PC version since my PC is more powerful (quad-core) than my MAC, I don't want to buy two copies of the same engine to run on different platforms. Now I will have to decide which one I see myself use more often.

[zullil]

Crafty compiles quickly and easily, and can be used with Xboard or run right from the command line.

I've had success running Arena 1.99 Beta 5 (and thus many closed source engines that are distributed only as .exe files) via Wine, which also compiles easily (but not quickly).

[krazyken]

I've had success running Arena 1.99 Beta 5 (and thus many closed source engines that are distributed only as .exe files) via Wine, which also compiles easily (but not quickly).

Don't need Arena to run windows engines, most will run under wine with a Mac GUI. But I may have to give it a try.

[IanO]

Sigma Chess maintains a list of UCI engines which can be loaded by a UCI compatible interface (like Sigma or Glaurung).

http://www.sigmachess.com/_chesslinks/c ... s.html#UCI

In my testing on an Intel MacBookPro, I would order them by strength:

1. HIARCS 12
2. Fruit 2.3.1
3. Glaurung 2.1
=4. TogaII 1.2b2a
=4. Hamsters 0.7
6. Homer
7. Sjeng 11.2 (Mac Chess)
8. Crafty 20.14
9. Sigma

I have not tested the other commercial programs (Rybka-microwine, Shredder, Deep Sjeng, Ruffian). I would also appreciate pointers to a newer build of TogaII.

For reference, the built-in Mac Chess uses the last open source version of Sjeng 11.2. The interface is atrocious; the level slider effectively has 11 settings, the first three are fixed depths 1, 2, and 3 (which are of course horrible), and then thinking time per move in seconds in powers of 2, which are of quite reasonable strength.

Ian

[pavel]

Sigma Chess maintains a list of UCI engines which can be loaded by a UCI compatible interface (like Sigma or Glaurung).

http://www.sigmachess.com/_chesslinks/c ... s.html#UCI

In my testing on an Intel MacBookPro, I would order them by strength:

1. HIARCS 12
2. Fruit 2.3.1
3. Glaurung 2.1
=4. TogaII 1.2b2a
=4. Hamsters 0.7
6. Homer
7. Sjeng 11.2 (Mac Chess)
8. Crafty 20.14
9. Sigma

I have not tested the other commercial programs (Rybka-microwine, Shredder, Deep Sjeng, Ruffian). I would also appreciate pointers to a newer build of TogaII.

For reference, the built-in Mac Chess uses the last open source version of Sjeng 11.2. The interface is atrocious; the level slider effectively has 11 settings, the first three are fixed depths 1, 2, and 3 (which are of course horrible), and then thinking time per move in seconds in powers of 2, which are of quite reasonable strength.

Ian

Thanks, I have already tried some of them, having a blast. I used the crafty build available from fink, not sure if it is fastest build, but it does the job.

[nepossiver]

I have not tested the other commercial programs (Rybka-microwine, Shredder, Deep Sjeng, Ruffian). I would also appreciate pointers to a newer build of TogaII.

Toga source code here compiles on mac, you just have to do it yourself - which, unless you have ICC and do a PGO-compile, will result in a slower executable than the ones for windows.

Crafty should be easy to compile as well, so you could have the newer version on mac.

[Tord Romstad]

Sigma Chess maintains a list of UCI engines which can be loaded by a UCI compatible interface (like Sigma or Glaurung).

http://www.sigmachess.com/_chesslinks/c ... s.html#UCI

In my testing on an Intel MacBookPro, I would order them by strength:

1. HIARCS 12
2. Fruit 2.3.1
3. Glaurung 2.1
=4. TogaII 1.2b2a
=4. Hamsters 0.7
6. Homer
7. Sjeng 11.2 (Mac Chess)
8. Crafty 20.14
9. Sigma

Assuming a 64-bit Mac running Leopard, I hope the new Glaurung 2.2 would climb at least one place on this list.

Tord

[IanO]

Assuming a 64-bit Mac running Leopard, I hope the new Glaurung 2.2 would climb at least one place on this list.

Tord

You're right. In some 5/SD 60-game matches:

Fruit 2.3.1 - Glaurung 2.1: 34-14-12 (68%)

Glaurung 2.2 - Fruit 2.3.1: 21-25-14 (56%)

And this was on Tiger, single threaded!

1. HIARCS 12
2. Glaurung 2.2
3. Fruit 2.3.1
4. Glaurung 2.1

Well done!

Ian

[terminator]

I don't want to sound like I'm taking the piss, but why get (an expensive) Mac and then complain there are no (free) chess apps? Shouldn't one think of these things before getting a computer?