Garbochess v2.01 (bugfix release)

[gladius]

- Fixed the hash size from being 2x what you asked for.
- Fixed a bug where the hash table was leaked if you changed hash size.
- No longer requires SSE2 for 32 bit version
- No installation required!

Quoting my orignal post:

You can grab it here http://forwardcoding.com/projects/garbo ... chess2.zip.

Comes in 32 bit and 64 bit flavors (I highly recommend using 64 bit if possible, the 32 bit version is quite unoptimized), and is way stronger than v1. Still not competing with Fruit/Toga et. al, but perhaps one day .

Version 2 is a complete rewrite from C# to C++, and 0x88 to bitboards. The search has been massively improved along the way. Evaluation is still pretty basic, but it has most major features in there now.

[playjunior]

Hi Gary,
I have a question to you if you don't mind.
I am currently trying to produce my own engine using C#. I stated with C++
but it was too time-consuming to debug: I decided to switch to C# to make it fun.

How much is the performance difference between a C# and C++ engine? (Assuming the same code, with minor language-specific differences).
Do you have an idea what the performance of a similar thing in Java would be? (my friend is writing his own engine in Java )
Thanks!

[gladius]

The speed difference is unfortunately pretty big. Writing in C# is definitely easier to debug, but you certainly pay a perf. penalty for the convenience.

I can't do a direct comparison, as my old engine used a 0x88 board, and the new one is bitboards, but it's about 5x faster in NPS. The overhead for things like structs, bounds checking, and tracking callstacks all adds up. For a chess program, those overheads add up pretty quickly.

Java would be similar perf to C#.

All that being said, I got to write my first search in a nice easy to debug way, then moved to C++ once I was comfortable .

[Spock]

In console mode Garbo 64-bit refuses to run with a run error. This happened on a Q6600 machine. I wonder why no one has reported this yet.
When trying it to run under Arena or Shredder Classic 3, I get a 'create process' error.

2.01 64-bit works fine in console mode here Gabor, as well as under Shredder GUI - on my Opteron.
I had however installed the 64-bit Microsoft CRT stuff before Gary made his new release. In theory it is no longer dependent on this, but maybe worth a shot

But it does NOT work on my Q6600 (I never installed the Microsoft stuff on that)

[Spock]

Well my machines are very different

Machine A
AMD Opteron 265 x2
XP X64
X64 CRT installed
Garbochess 2.01 x64 works fine

Machine B
Intel Q6600
Vista X64
X64 CRT *not* installed
Garbochess 2.01 x64 *does not work*

Exactly why it doesn't work on the Q6600 could be down to a number of things, everything is different on these 2 machines

[gladius]

Thanks, Ray. I have not installed that CRT stuff on my machine as I thought it would not be needed with the new version of Garbo. I am reluctant to install CRT just to get one engine going.

Well, that would be because I'm a complete twit, and I forgot to change the linker setting for the 64 bit compile as well.

Sorry about that, if you re-download it now, it should be fine. The filesize of the version with the statically linked CRT should be 143kb, the old version was 72kb.

[gladius]

The zip I downloaded is still the same as before. Well, I am not in the position anyway to try it out until this evening and I am sure Ray will have already done a test by then.

What filesize does the zip have? I just downloaded it to double check, and garbochess2.zip is 139kb (and it has the right x64 compile in it). Your web browser might be caching the old file, try clearing your cache, or hitting shift+refresh on the url for the download.

My fault for putting the wrong exe up there anyhow though. Making more work for people trying to use the engine = bad .

[Spock]

Gabor,

The zip file I get is correct. I've PMd it to you via the CCRL forum

[gladius]

Still no joy, however. Both in Arena and Deep Shredder 11 GUI's, GC hangs with an error message of 'GarboChess2.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.'

This is Win XP Pro x64 Edition.

PS The 32-bit version hangs as well.

That is bizarre. I wonder if there is still some dependency on the CRT that I am missing.

Does it crash if you just double click on the exe?

I've tried changing the linker settings some more (updated zip is 140k), but at this point I'm running out of ideas.

[Spock]

OK - just downlaoded the exes again. On my Q6600 where the CRT is not installed, both 32-bit and 64-bit exes work fine. I double click on the engines, and can go into UCI mode with no problems at all