Let's try Arena 2.0!

[Mike S.]

Arena comes up as a mixture of German and English.

It looks ok to me... both german and english versions. I see no mixture. These languages were initially included in the download I have chosen.

In the Extras menu, the last menu point is to switch languages ("Sprache wählen" in german). That initiates a restart of Arena, and the language selection is kept. I did not try the startup parameter.

If it doesn't work for you, check if you have the file English.lng (165 KB) in the subdirectory Languages, or maybe that file is broken. In that case, I would download a complete 2.0 package again, not just the language file alone because I saw that these are for 1.99 or 1.1 versions, not for 2.0 yet, at the Arena site. I don't know if 1.99 and 2.0 have identical language files.

[Mike S.]

Yes, in the subdirectory Sounds there should be two wav files, for normal moves and for capture moves (but none for the other sound events). Use the drop down list to assign the files, each.

[Mike S.]

So far, almost all works fine. I've tested an engine match, etc.etc.

I only found some minor things:

Commentary symbols from PGN (the "$" codes) are not displayed as ?,! etc. but the codes themselves are shown, and saved, like text comments.

If I navigate through a game with the cursor keys, I cannot navigate into variations and subvariations. That requires the mouse.

(Btw. except for that, the complete handling and display of variations and subvariations seems to work fine. - Thanks, this is a big improvement over 1.1.)

The palette of these short comments/symbols is incomplete, for example ?? and !! are missing, and some others. (I understand that some symbols require special fonts.)

The antialiasing of external truetype piece fonts doesn't seem to work. It worked in version 1.1 but in 2.0, the borders of the pieces are "ugly." I use the internal pieces now, which look good enough with gradient and shadow.

P.S. Speedtest of my D945 (~dual P4):

COMPUTER-11 Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz 3396.61 MHz 11.73 AM 0.52 EF

There is a P4 with 2.80 GHz in the list, which got an Arena Mark of 11.83. Maybe it's due to hyperthreading (which I have disabled) or faster memory.

[Graham Banks]

Good to see Arena updated after really a long time. I hope they find time to working on it more, they have plenty of scope to overtake chessbase. It seems chessbase has run out of ideas.

Its hard to believe a sane person would come up with such an "assessment" after the release of Arena 1.99 to 2.00 Is this reverse psychology or a joke?

You should be aware that there is a lot of anti-Chessbase sentiment in this forum, mainly because of bad experiences with their customer service or perceived lack thereof.
However, in my opinion, the Chessbase GUI is still the best.
Having said that, both the ChessGUI and Arena GUIs are free and excellent, and many would say the same about Winboard also.
Basically we are spoiled for choice!

[Dave K]

I have a mixture of 1.1 files and 2.0 because I took the zip version and unzipped it into the old 1.1 folder without using the "use directory" option. Tomorrow, when there's more time I'll clean it out and reinstall. I'm confident that will do it.

Dave

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Good to see Arena updated after really a long time. I hope they find time to working on it more, they have plenty of scope to overtake chessbase. It seems chessbase has run out of ideas.

Its hard to believe a sane person would come up with such an "assessment" after the release of Arena 1.99 to 2.00 Is this reverse psychology or a joke?

You should be aware that there is a lot of anti-Chessbase sentiment in this forum, mainly because of bad experiences with their customer service or perceived lack thereof.
However, in my opinion, the Chessbase GUI is still the best.Having said that, both the ChessGUI and Arena GUIs are free and excellent, and many would say the same about Winboard also.
Basically we are spoiled for choice!

No doubt about that....fully agreed....

[Karmazen & Oliver]

So far, almost all works fine. I've tested an engine match, etc.etc.

I only found some minor things:

...

P.S. Speedtest of my D945 (~dual P4):

COMPUTER-11 Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz 3396.61 MHz 11.73 AM 0.52 EF

There is a P4 with 2.80 GHz in the list, which got an Arena Mark of 11.83. Maybe it's due to hyperthreading (which I have disabled) or faster memory.

yes. but I dont think that is real value... " hyperthreading " is better only in some moments and ALWAYS more slow that dual core..

a Dual core 2,8 I have one... run near ~9.9

maybe that example was a 3,8 Ghz P Iv ? or a "overclockin" in hot... some board do that...

the ram have not a lot of influence... is very very small betters.. 1-3% in the best moment.

but that is irrelevant values, only it is a reference if your system have some "big" problem... 7 or 9 or 11 or 12... only a few points... 25~75 points real. elo

PD: your system have variate clock... 2,8 to 3,4. can you say what are your temps when use one core... and when use two cores ? and have you the original fan intel ? and the board mb that your are installed ?

bye. oliver from Spain.

[terminator]

Where are the arena fanboys? Apparently Arena 2.0 cannot work with crafty. What tests were done prior to it being released?

[beachknight]

Where are the arena fanboys? Apparently Arena 2.0 cannot work with crafty. What tests were done prior to it being released?

Indeed. No Arena 2 tests are on the sight?

Really strange.

Best,

[swami]

Where are the arena fanboys? Apparently Arena 2.0 cannot work with crafty. What tests were done prior to it being released?

Indeed. No Arena 2 tests are on the sight?

Really strange.

Best,

I'll be back with One last edition/Division tournaments under Arena 2. Check back later.