legal move generator

[tpetzke]

If you think you get better code with a legal move generator, do it. Don't sacrifice clean code for a tiny speed up in move generation.

I reality the legal check is not that expensive because you don't generate all moves all the time. If you get a cut off from the hash move (you often do) you generate no moves at all. A legal check of capture moves is also not that expensive which gets you also often a cutoff.

So if you are happy with pseudo legal moves do it, but don't do it because all others seem to do it.

Thomas...

[Karlo Bala]

IMHO, GreKo(6.5) chess has a very nice legal move generator

Yes, and after I returned back to pseudo-legal scheme the engine got stronger by 50 Elo points.

Is it due to speed or something else?

Still, I like yours move generator very much.

[WinPooh]

IMHO, GreKo(6.5) chess has a very nice legal move generator

Yes, and after I returned back to pseudo-legal scheme the engine got stronger by 50 Elo points.

Is it due to speed or something else?

Still, I like yours move generator very much.

Hard to say. There was a lot of refactoring changes, switching to pseudo-legal being only one of them. But the raw speed in perft test surely increased.