Back to the 80's with UCI

[Mike S.]

Thanks Ed, but it doesn't work here either. The program "messtiny.exe" appears in memory twice, and keeps using one cpu thread even after closing the chess interface (in this case, Shredder Classic). Had to remove it with a process tool. It looks like the engines don't understand or ignore the blitz time control setting I've tried, 5m+1s, and won't move in time or not at all.

This was in Windows 7 32-bit, Shredder Classic.

Also, a documentation of the uci engine options would be required. Pressing the help button had no effect. E.g. what is "level type" etc.? What is "slowdown"; can these engines be configured to utilize full speed of the modern cpus?

Thx anyway!

[IWB]

Interesting to see which one is best "ON EQUAL HARDWARE". According to the SSDF list the MM 4 and the ROMA are listed as the two best computers ... but that was on completly different hardware (6502 Turbo KIT 16MHz + 68020 14 MHz). The MM 5 is well below them but was just running on 5 MHz.

So, given an equal Hardware, which on is the best of those old engines?

Bye
Ingo

Is it really a fair comparison? I suppose the engines are running on two different emulators (correct me if I'm wrong), which may have different performance.

It seems to be a "recompile" in an exe for x86 ... If that is a capsule of an emulator is something I dont know ...
Just looking from outside it seems to be a normal engine!

Bye
Ingo

[mwyoung]

Thanks Ed, but it doesn't work here either. The program "messtiny.exe" appears in memory twice, and keeps using one cpu thread even after closing the chess interface (in this case, Shredder Classic). Had to remove it with a process tool. It looks like the engines don't understand or ignore the blitz time control setting I've tried, 5m+1s, and won't move in time or not at all.

This was in Windows 7 32-bit, Shredder Classic.

Also, a documentation of the uci engine options would be required. Pressing the help button had no effect. E.g. what is "level type" etc.? What is "slowdown"; can these engines be configured to utilize full speed of the modern cpus?

Thx anyway!

Don't use Incs at all these are 1980's 1990's programs they don't have code for Incs.

MM4 crashed in the fritz 13 gui would not work at all.

Rebel 5 also crashed in games, but the engine would play a bit before crashing.

All other engines work, but some don't report depth. But seem to play correctly.

So I got 7 out of 9 engines to work correctly. Here are my results so far...



1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Mephisto Roma 32 Bit ** 1 1 2.0/2
2 Mephisto MM5 ** 1 1.0/1 0.50
3 Mephisto Dallas 32 Bit 0 ** 1 1.0/2 0.50
4 Mephisto Dallas 16 Bit 0 ** 1 1.0/2 0.00
5 Mephisto III Glasgow 0 ** ½ 0.5/2 0.25
6 Mephisto MM50 0 ½ ** 0.5/2 0.25
7 Mephisto Amsterdam 0 ** 0.0/1


Thanks Ed.

PS remember that the programs that do report depth will show low search depths even on fast computers. This is normal, the program of that era were brute force programs.

[F.Huber]

It looks like the engines don't understand or ignore the blitz time control setting I've tried, 5m+1s, and won't move in time or not at all.

Here are the most important infos about using these old engines with the messtiny emulator - they are from the German forum where this emulator has been developed (and thus only in German).

Code: Select all

Start der Emulation:
-------------------
messtiny amsterd  -> Amsterdam
messtiny dallas16 -> Dallas 16-bit
messtiny dallas32 -> Dallas 32-bit
messtiny glasgow  -> Glasgow III-S
messtiny mm4      -> MM IV
messtiny mm5      -> MM V 5.1
messtiny mm50     -> MM V 5.0
messtiny rebel5   -> Rebel 5 (eingeschränkt, nur mit Option -nommunlimited)
messtiny roma32   -> Roma 32-bit

Optionale Parameter:
-------------------
-mmlog         -> Ausgabe Logfile
-mmclock       -> Vorgabe Taktfrequenz, z.B. -mmclock 5000000,
                  die Emulation startet mit 5 MHz
-nommunlimited -> Emulator startet mit Orginalgeschwindigkeit und
                  eigener Zeitkontrolle
-mmtcdelay     -> Vorgabe Korrekturwert Zeitkontrolle, z.B. -mmtcdelay 150,
                  pro Zug werden 150 ms für Ein/Ausgabe berücksichtigt

Wenn die Emulation mit -nommunlimited gestarted wird (also mit
Originalgeschwindigkeit und Orginalzeitmanagment) ist die Befehlseingabe
deutlich beschleunigt. Die Emulation regagiert nicht mehr so zäh.

Level bei -nommunlimited:
------------------------
Level 0:   3 seconds/move    -> st 3
Level 1:   5 seconds/move    -> st 5
Level 2:  10 seconds/move    -> st 10
Level 3:  20 seconds/move    -> st 20
Level 4:  60 seconds/move    -> st 60
Level 5: 120 seconds/move    -> st 120
Level 6:  40 moves / 2 hours -> level 40 120 0

Alle anderen Zeiteinstellungen werden ignoriert.

Läuft die Emulation unlimited, dann wird nur noch während der Suche
Prozessorzeit verbraucht. Da in diesem Modus kein Pondering möglich ist,
kann die Emulation auch angehalten werden.

[Alexander Schmidt]

I wonder how u got the permission to offer the Glasgow roms for download

Better use this programs as Winboard engines, the wb2uci configs always made problems.

Chose messtiny under the GUI, add the name of the rom as command line.

Code: Select all

messtiny.exe dallas

If you want the programs run at original speed add -nommunlimited

Code: Select all

messtiny.exe dallas -nommunlimited

Be aware: You have to chose special levels at original speed, look at the debug window. At full speed the programs don't use the original time management, it's more like a hack...

Code: Select all

101.752<--1:Supported Levels:
101.752<--1:Level 0: 3   seconds/move   -> st 3
101.752<--1:Level 1: 5   seconds/move   -> st 5
101.752<--1:Level 2: 10  seconds/move   -> st 10
101.752<--1:Level 3: 20  seconds/move   -> st 20
101.752<--1:Level 4: 60  seconds/move   -> st 60
101.752<--1:Level 5: 120 seconds/move   -> st 120
101.752<--1:Level 6: 40 move in 2 hours -> level 40 120 0

When you change the level in Arena look at the debug window to be sure the programm changed it's level

Code: Select all

177.721-->1:level 40 120 0
177.726<--1:PLAy
177.736<--1:LE 2
177.744<--1:LE 6
177.755<--1:PLAy
177.765<--1:MEM0

If you want to run the programs at a definied speed add this command line:

Code: Select all

dallas -nommunlimited -mmclock 66000000

for 66MHz.

Many thanks to Richard Lang and you, Ed, for this gift!

Great programs for my Mysticum

[F.Huber]

Rebel 5 also crashed in games, but the engine would play a bit before crashing.

Rebel 5 works only in 'normal' speed in this emulation, and for this you have to add the option '-nommunlimited' in wb2uci.eng in the MMRebel5-UCI folder.

It should look like this:

[OPTIONS]
Program=..\messtiny.exe rebel5 -nommunlimited -mmlog

And with this option '-nommunlimited' only the levels in my previous posting are allowed in the GUI.

[fern]

What a great gift, Ed!
Thanks very much!!
I will see how MMIV running in a fast comp. compares with the stand-alone unit I have and play in Munchen massive board.
a hug
Fern

[Adam Hair]

Thanks Ed, but it doesn't work here either. The program "messtiny.exe" appears in memory twice, and keeps using one cpu thread even after closing the chess interface (in this case, Shredder Classic). Had to remove it with a process tool. It looks like the engines don't understand or ignore the blitz time control setting I've tried, 5m+1s, and won't move in time or not at all.

This was in Windows 7 32-bit, Shredder Classic.

Also, a documentation of the uci engine options would be required. Pressing the help button had no effect. E.g. what is "level type" etc.? What is "slowdown"; can these engines be configured to utilize full speed of the modern cpus?

Thx anyway!

Don't use Incs at all these are 1980's 1990's programs they don't have code for Incs.

MM4 crashed in the fritz 13 gui would not work at all.

Rebel 5 also crashed in games, but the engine would play a bit before crashing.

All other engines work, but some don't report depth. But seem to play correctly.

So I got 7 out of 9 engines to work correctly. Here are my results so far...



1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Mephisto Roma 32 Bit ** 1 1 2.0/2
2 Mephisto MM5 ** 1 1.0/1 0.50
3 Mephisto Dallas 32 Bit 0 ** 1 1.0/2 0.50
4 Mephisto Dallas 16 Bit 0 ** 1 1.0/2 0.00
5 Mephisto III Glasgow 0 ** ½ 0.5/2 0.25
6 Mephisto MM50 0 ½ ** 0.5/2 0.25
7 Mephisto Amsterdam 0 ** 0.0/1


Thanks Ed.

PS remember that the programs that do report depth will show low search depths even on fast computers. This is normal, the program of that era were brute force programs.

If -nommunlimited is removed from the WB2UCI.eng file, then MM5 and MM4 (and probably all but Rebel 5) will work with incremental time controls. MM5 played approximately 1200 games for me at 4 minutes + 3 seconds per move. At the moment, I have it playing a gauntlet at 40 moves in 3 minutes, repeating. The only problem I have is when I use starting positions or a common book with the repeating time control. The emulator does not undertand that, at move 41, the move counter should reset to 40. Other than this and a few time forfeits, MM5, MM4, and the emulator work fine (XP 32-bit and 64-bit, Pentium IV and E8400, Arena 2.01 and 3.0).

[F.Huber]

If -nommunlimited is removed from the WB2UCI.eng file, then MM5 and MM4 (and probably all but Rebel 5) will work with incremental time controls.

In principle you're right, but you don't need to remove -nommunlimited from the wb2uci.eng files because this option does not exist in any of these wb2uci.eng files!

It's rather the other way round: you have to add it for Rebel5 because this engine works only with this option.

And BTW: you're right that without this option you can use any timecontrols, because without -nommunlimited the emulator itself takes care of the time: it always sets the engine to analysis mode (i.e. infinite time) and interrupts the calculation when the time is over.

[Adam Hair]

If -nommunlimited is removed from the WB2UCI.eng file, then MM5 and MM4 (and probably all but Rebel 5) will work with incremental time controls.

In principle you're right, but you don't need to remove -nommunlimited from the wb2uci.eng files because this option does not exist in any of these wb2uci.eng files!

It's rather the other way round: you have to add it for Rebel5 because this engine works only with this option.

And BTW: you're right that without this option you can use any timecontrols, because without -nommunlimited the emulator itself takes care of the time: it always sets the engine to analysis mode (i.e. infinite time) and interrupts the calculation when the time is over.

I have not looked at these .eng files yet

I have been using MM5 and the emulator since they were made available two years ago. I mistakenly thought that I had to remove no unlimited command. I guess that I did not remember correctly

Thanks, Franz.