Hopeless Apple Mac

[Werewolf]

Since there are a few Apple fanboys on this site, I was wondering if they had any way round this problem:

MacOS can't natively run a lot of chess apps like Chessbase, Fritz, Aquarium, etc etc.

You can run Parallels on MacOS which allows one to run Windows, but Parallels doesn't support AVX / BMI and other extensions, so Stockfish turns into Cripplefish the M4 Max looks like a CPU from 5 or 6 years ago.

I don't get why people think Apple is good for chess.

[smatovic]

Not a fanboy, but the obv. thing to do is to use Banksia GUI:

https://banksiagui.com/download/

and compile Stockfish/Lc0 from source via brew:

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/stockfish#default

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/lc0#default

--
Srdja

[Modern Times]

Hopeless Apple Mac

Agreed. A world of pain for Chess for most people. If you invest a considerable amount of time you may have some success but why bother when Windows does it all seamlessly with no effort. Lots of spare time isn't something most people have a lot of.

[Hai]

Since there are a few Apple fanboys on this site, I was wondering if they had any way round this problem:

MacOS can't natively run a lot of chess apps like Chessbase, Fritz, Aquarium, etc etc.

You can run Parallels on MacOS which allows one to run Windows, but Parallels doesn't support AVX / BMI and other extensions, so Stockfish turns into Cripplefish the M4 Max looks like a CPU from 5 or 6 years ago.

I don't get why people think Apple is good for chess.

Natively it can run a lot of chess Apps like Deep Hiarcs Chess Explorer Pro Premium v1.5, BanksiaGUI, etc etc.
ChessBase(Fritz) release more and more native Mac stuff. = Sooner or later they will release a native ChessBase and Fritz version.

Native Aquarium? Probably in the future but I don't think so. I think the last Aquarium Version with a small real improvement was 2019.
See the what's new part since years: https://shop.chessok.com/index.php?main ... cts_id=984
It looks like they want to earn money by don't nothing.

Parallel Windows VM now supports AVX, AVX2, BMI, FMA, F16C


If you want a faster Stockfish, blame the developers on discord for only supporting ARM cpus but no optimizing.
CPU from 5 to 6 years ago lol -> https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_c ... tra_9_185h Multi core performance:
Apple M4 Max (16-CPU 40-GPU) (100%)
Newest Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (43%)

We don't think we know that Apple is good for chess, because we bought Apple devices and compared them to Windows for a long time.

[Hai]

Not a fanboy, but the obv. thing to do is to use Banksia GUI:

https://banksiagui.com/download/

and compile Stockfish/Lc0 from source via brew:

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/stockfish#default

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/lc0#default

--
Srdja

Why brew?
You know that compiling Stockfish yourself, makes it around 2.3x faster?

[Hai]

I know some People which used Windows or Linux since years only for chess.
Best configuration, super fast...
Now they tried the Mac mini with M4 and M4 Pro chip and also MacBooks with M4 MAX chip.
Every one of them finds these Apple devices much better and as a result, they all bought these devices.

[cpeters]

MacOS can't natively run a lot of chess apps like Chessbase, Fritz, Aquarium, etc etc.

You can run Parallels on MacOS which allows one to run Windows, but Parallels doesn't support AVX / BMI and other extensions, so Stockfish turns into Cripplefish the M4 Max looks like a CPU from 5 or 6 years ago.

I don't get why people think Apple is good for chess.

I think the "etc.etc." stops eventually somewhere, as there is plenty of chess-software for unixoide operating systems - whether your learnt workflow or personal preferences allows the use/switch, is up to you. Chessbase (do they still use the flash-thing from adobe?) might be the gold-standard, but there are many useful (or clumsy) alternatives.

However I also think installing parallels (in which you could run a windows-binary compiled for arm/so no slowfish actually) +a proper windows just for hobbychess seems a bit much and dear - so why not keep using your preferred system?

ChessBase(Fritz) release more and more native Mac stuff. = Sooner or later they will release a native ChessBase and Fritz version.

Never - not "Chessbase", also not their FritzGUI. Impossible - they couldn't even maintain a working program for either Android or iOS and were 'happy' over years with the rubbish they released in the playstores. The player-software ("Beat the dragon in 13 moves with IM Aston B. Kimberley part 24") yes. One could buy something for the mobiles (not everything..).

Lots of spare time isn't something most people have a lot of.

Yes, agreed. Ultra-professional. No spare time. Chess is not a hobby for you, but for earning money. Hurry! Find the best variations! Quickly. Work with professionals in a professional work-environment. Fast winning people! No time wasting losers but winners! Chessheros. Success.


greetings

[Werewolf]

Since there are a few Apple fanboys on this site, I was wondering if they had any way round this problem:

MacOS can't natively run a lot of chess apps like Chessbase, Fritz, Aquarium, etc etc.

You can run Parallels on MacOS which allows one to run Windows, but Parallels doesn't support AVX / BMI and other extensions, so Stockfish turns into Cripplefish the M4 Max looks like a CPU from 5 or 6 years ago.

I don't get why people think Apple is good for chess.

Natively it can run a lot of chess Apps like Deep Hiarcs Chess Explorer Pro Premium v1.5, BanksiaGUI, etc etc.
ChessBase(Fritz) release more and more native Mac stuff. = Sooner or later they will release a native ChessBase and Fritz version.

Native Aquarium? Probably in the future but I don't think so. I think the last Aquarium Version with a small real improvement was 2019.
See the what's new part since years: https://shop.chessok.com/index.php?main ... cts_id=984
It looks like they want to earn money by don't nothing.

Parallel Windows VM now supports AVX, AVX2, BMI, FMA, F16C


If you want a faster Stockfish, blame the developers on discord for only supporting ARM cpus but no optimizing.
CPU from 5 to 6 years ago lol -> https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_c ... tra_9_185h Multi core performance:
Apple M4 Max (16-CPU 40-GPU) (100%)
Newest Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (43%)

We don't think we know that Apple is good for chess, because we bought Apple devices and compared them to Windows for a long time.

I don't think we'll ever see Chessbase / Fritz or Aquarium on the Mac, but this is speculation.

Since when did Parallels support AVX?
So Stockfish AVX on Windows, on Parallels, will now run? That's quite a big deal.

[smatovic]

Why brew?
You know that compiling Stockfish yourself, makes it around 2.3x faster?

As for Stockfish, brew compiles for arch apple-silicon:

Code: Select all

  def install
    arch = Hardware::CPU.arm? ? "apple-silicon" : "x86-64-modern"

    system "make", "-C", "src", "build", "ARCH=#{arch}"
    bin

https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-co ... ockfish.rb

so there should be no difference of brew compile or self compile:

Code: Select all

ifeq ($(ARCH),apple-silicon)
	arch = arm64
	prefetch = yes
	popcnt = yes
	neon = yes
	dotprod = yes
	arm_version = 8
endif

https://github.com/official-stockfish/S ... c/Makefile

[...]
If you want a faster Stockfish, blame the developers on discord for only supporting ARM cpus but no optimizing.
[...]

Looks like ARM v9 has no flags in the Makefile, hence no optimizations, but for ARM v8 there are several.

As for Lc0, it does install meson and the network automatically, compiles from source with Metal backend if usable.

--
Srdja

[cpeters]

If you want a faster Stockfish, blame the developers on discord for only supporting ARM cpus but no optimizing.

This is nonsense and unfair. What should 'they' do? Break into the apple vault and get the technical documentation and libraries of *stuff present in the chips which the company itself is not willing to publish?

*(https://github.com/corsix/amx)?

Or make use of this https://developer.apple.com/documentation/accelerate if possible?

If a feature is not present in a piece of open-source-software you may set a bounty to interest people of implementing it..

greetings

ps
"SVE/SVE2 is not present for the Apple M4. "