Lack of up-to-date engines

Marek Soszynski · Post by **Marek Soszynski** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:14 am

I just want to bemoan the lack of up-to-date engines with the latest features.

How many current engines are multi-processor, 64-bit, fully UCI-compliant (such that they can be used for IDeA in Aquarium) and use Nalimov tablebases?

I know of only four: Rybka, Naum, Shredder, and StockFish.

Four!

Perhaps one of the Togas, but which?

Any others?

HIARCS - not currently 64-bit
Onno - not yet mp
Zappa, Junior - not fully UCI
Fritz, Crafty - opposed to UCI

yanquis1972 · Post by **yanquis1972** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:20 am

HIARCS isn't 64 bit because there was no real benefit, iirc.

Tord Romstad · Post by **Tord Romstad** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:35 am

Marek Soszynski wrote:I just want to bemoan the lack of up-to-date engines with the latest features.

How many current engines are multi-processor, 64-bit, fully UCI-compliant (such that they can be used for IDeA in Aquarium) and use Nalimov tablebases?

I know of only four: Rybka, Naum, Shredder, and StockFish.

Stockfish (please note that the name isn't "StockFish", but "Stockfish") doesn't use Nalimov tablebases, and never will. Yevgeny Nalimov's license makes it impossible to use his tablebase code in free software.

However, I'm working on bitbase support in Stockfish. This won't be included in Stockfish 1.5, but hopefully in 1.6.

Marek Soszynski · Post by **Marek Soszynski** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:50 am

Oh dear. I was hoping that the list of fully-featured engines would increase, but with with Stockfish's removal it's down to three. One of which, Naum, is no longer in full-time development.

At the time the last 64-bit HIARCS (X54) was released, there were fewer 64-bit machines around. Today it would undergo greater testing for a more certain conclusion about its relative strength.

Tord Romstad · Post by **Tord Romstad** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:00 am

Marek Soszynski wrote:Oh dear. I was hoping that the list of fully-featured engines would increase, but with with Stockfish's removal it's down to three. One of which, Naum, is no longer in full-time development.

I would say that including Nalimov tablebases as a requirement for a "fully-featured engine" is rather unfair, as a significant fraction of all engines are simply not allowed to use them.

Marek Soszynski · Post by **Marek Soszynski** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:12 am

Tord Romstad wrote:I would say that including Nalimov tablebases as a requirement for a "fully-featured engine" is rather unfair, as a significant fraction of all engines are simply not allowed to use them.

Suspending this "rather unfair" requirement still leaves us with a disappointing number of engines.

Anyway, it goes without saying that Stockfish is a fine engine. I look forward to the updates.

Trahald · Post by **Trahald** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:00 pm

What about Sjeng? It is UCI compliant, supports MP and Nalimov tablebases. I'm not sure whether it is 64-bit capable or not, since I don't have a copy.

Also I don't use Aquarium, therefore I'm not sure what is required to supprt IDeA. I think Rybka 3 uses it's own extensions to the UCI protocol, extensions which are supposedly to be published, but have not yet done so.

As such I do not think IDeA is a good measure of UCI support, so I would add Zappa, Junior and Sjeng to that list. Also agree with Tord re Nalimov Tablebases as a requirement. I don't think they add much in terms of strength to an engine. So I'd add Glaurung/Stockfish as well. Glad to hear about the new bitbase support though!

AdminX · Post by **AdminX** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:52 pm

Trahald wrote:What about Sjeng? It is UCI compliant, supports MP and Nalimov tablebases. I'm not sure whether it is 64-bit capable or not, since I don't have a copy.

It is also 64-bit.

Marek Soszynski · Post by **Marek Soszynski** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:59 pm

Trahald wrote:What about Sjeng? It is UCI compliant, supports MP and Nalimov tablebases. I'm not sure whether it is 64-bit capable or not, since I don't have a copy.

Also I don't use Aquarium, therefore I'm not sure what is required to supprt IDeA. I think Rybka 3 uses it's own extensions to the UCI protocol, extensions which are supposedly to be published, but have not yet done so.

As such I do not think IDeA is a good measure of UCI support, so I would add Zappa, Junior and Sjeng to that list. Also agree with Tord re Nalimov Tablebases as a requirement. I don't think they add much in terms of strength to an engine. So I'd add Glaurung/Stockfish as well. Glad to hear about the new bitbase support though!

I don't know about Sjeng.

My requirements are tough because, well, that's what I require of my analysis engines. Of course if you're not interested in fully-featured analysis on multi-processor 64-bit systems, then your own requirements will be different.

Regarding Zappa and Junior: not only are they not up to handling IDeA in Aquarium, they don't even support next-best/ignore move, and so on. That's why I don't use them all that much within ChessBase, let alone Aquarium.

Since Shredder, HIARCS, Stockfish and Naum can run IDeA, it's not a matter of special Rybka extensions.

Trahald · Post by **Trahald** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 2:08 pm

Marek Soszynski wrote:I don't know about Sjeng.

Well Ted's just answered that for you! Apparently that's 64-bit too. So Sjeng definitely meets your requirements.

Cheers

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