1
0
Fork 0
mirror of https://github.com/sockspls/badfish synced 2025-05-01 17:19:36 +00:00
Commit graph

162 commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Stefan Geschwentner
8fec883471 Tweak Late Move Reduction at root
Maintain best move counter at the root and allow there only moves which has a counter
of zero for Late Move Reduction. For compensation only the first three moves are excluded
from Late Move Reduction per default instead the first four moves.

What we can further do:

- here we use a simple counting scheme but perhaps some aging to fade out early iterations
  could be helpful
- use the best move counter also at inner nodes for LMR and/or pruning

STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 17414 W: 3984 L: 3733 D: 9697
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d6234bb0ebc5939d09f2aa2

LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 38058 W: 6448 L: 6166 D: 25444
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d62681a0ebc5939d09f2f27

Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2282

Bench: 3568210
2019-08-26 08:49:55 +02:00
Marco Costalba
d39bc2efa1 Assorted trivial cleanups 5/2019
No functional change.

bench: 4178282
2019-06-09 14:57:08 +02:00
Stéphane Nicolet
cf5d683408 Stockfish 10-beta
Preparation commit for the upcoming Stockfish 10 version, giving a chance to catch last minute feature bugs and evaluation regression during the one-week code freeze period. Also changing the copyright dates to include 2019.

No functional change
2018-11-19 11:18:21 +01:00
Stefan Geschwentner
12e79be910 Better check evasion move sorting
Use in addition the counter move history table for sorting quiet
check evasion moves in main and quiecence search. Also rename
"contHistory" to "continuationHistory" while there.

STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 73284 W: 16433 L: 15938 D: 40913
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5b4f526e0ebc5902bdb7a401

LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 12135 W: 2171 L: 1997 D: 7967
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5b4fc0ef0ebc5902bdb7ae0e

Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1685

Bench 4817583
2018-07-19 18:27:20 +02:00
Stéphane Nicolet
a0486ecb40 Fix comments, rename variables
Thanks everybody for the various hints in the perpetual renaming thread:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/1426

No functional change
2018-06-02 17:41:37 +02:00
syzygy1
108f0da4d7 Tablebases root ranking
This patch corrects both MultiPV behaviour and "go searchmoves" behaviour
for tablebases.

We change the logic of table base probing at root positions from filtering
to ranking. The ranking code is much more straightforward than the current
filtering code (this is a simplification), and also more versatile.

If the root is a TB position, each root move is probed and assigned a TB score
and a TB rank. The TB score is the Value to be displayed to the user for that
move (unless the search finds a mate score), while the TB rank determines which
moves should appear higher in a multi-pv search. In game play, the engine will
always pick a move with the highest rank.

Ranks run from -1000 to +1000:

901 to 1000   : TB win
900           : normally a TB win, in rare cases this could be a draw
1 to 899      : cursed TB wins
0             : draw
-1 to -899    : blessed TB losses
-900          : normally a TB loss, in rare cases this could be a draw
-901 to -1000 : TB loss

Normally all winning moves get rank 1000 (to let the search pick the best
among them). The exception is if there has been a first repetition. In that
case, moves are ranked strictly by DTZ so that the engine will play a move
that lowers DTZ (and therefore cannot repeat the position a second time).

Losing moves get rank -1000 unless they have relatively high DTZ, meaning
they have some drawing chances. Those get ranks towards -901 (when they
cross -900 the draw is certain).

Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1467

No functional change (without tablebases).
2018-04-18 18:46:24 +02:00
mstembera
76f9cd4df1 Some small changes
1) Use make_bitboard() in Bitboards::init()

2) Fix MSVC warning: search.h(85): warning C4244: '=': conversion from
   'TimePoint' to 'int', possible loss of data.

Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1524

No functional change.
2018-04-01 02:32:55 +02:00
Stéphane Nicolet
a03e98dcd3 Switch time management to 64 bits
This is a patch to fix issue #1498, switching the time management variables
to 64 bits to avoid overflow of time variables after 25 days.

There was a bug in Stockfish 9 causing the output to be wrong after
2^31 milliseconds search. Here is a long run from the starting position:

info depth 64 seldepth 87 multipv 1 score cp 23 nodes 13928920239402
nps 0 tbhits 0 time -504995523 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 c2c4 d5c4 e2e3 e7e6 f1c4
c7c5 e1g1 b8c6 d4c5 d8d1 f1d1 f8c5 c4e2 e8g8 a2a3 c5e7 b2b4 f8d8 b1d2 b7b6 c1b2
c8b7 a1c1 a8c8 c1c2 c6e5 d1c1 c8c2 c1c2 e5f3 d2f3 a7a5 b4b5 e7c5 f3d4 d8c8 d4b3
c5d6 c2c8 b7c8 b3d2 c8b7 d2c4 d6c5 e2f3 b7d5 f3d5 e6d5 c4e5 a5a4 e5d3 f6e4 d3c5
e4c5 b2d4 c5e4 d4b6 e4d6 g2g4 d6b5 b6c5 b5c7 g1g2 c7e6 c5d6 g7g6

We check at compile time that the TimePoint type is exactly 64 bits long for
the compiler (TimePoint is our alias in Stockfish for std::chrono::milliseconds
-- it is a signed integer type of at least 45 bits according to the C++ standard,
but will most probably be implemented as a 64 bits signed integer on modern
compilers), and we use this TimePoint type consistently across the code.

Bug report by user "fischerandom" on the TCEC chat (thanks), and the
patch includes code and suggestions by user "WOnder93" and Ronald de Man.

Fixes issue:          https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/1498
Closes pull request:  https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1510

No functional change.
2018-03-27 16:25:41 +02:00
Ronald de Man
759b3c79cf Mark all compile-time constants as constexpr.
To more clearly distinguish them from "const" local variables, this patch
defines compile-time local constants as constexpr. This is consistent with
the definition of PvNode as constexpr in search() and qsearch(). It also
makes the code more robust, since the compiler will now check that those
constants are indeed compile-time constants.

We can go even one step further and define all the evaluation and search
compile-time constants as constexpr.

In generate_castling() I replaced "K" with "step", since K was incorrectly
capitalised (in the Chess960 case).

In timeman.cpp I had to make the non-local constants MaxRatio and StealRatio
constepxr, since otherwise gcc would complain when calculating TMaxRatio and
TStealRatio. (Strangely, I did not have to make Is64Bit constexpr even though
it is used in ucioption.cpp in the calculation of constexpr MaxHashMB.)

I have renamed PieceCount to pieceCount in material.h, since the values of
the array are not compile-time constants.

Some compile-time constants in tbprobe.cpp were overlooked. Sides and MaxFile
are not compile-time constants, so were renamed to sides and maxFile.

Non-functional change.
2018-03-18 23:48:16 +01:00
Joost VandeVondele
9afa1d7330 New Year 2018
Adjust copyright headers.

No functional change.
2018-01-01 13:18:10 +01:00
Joost VandeVondele
e385f194e9 Fix uninitialized memory usage
After increasing the number of threads, the histories were not cleared,
resulting in uninitialized memory usage.

This patch fixes this by clearing threads histories in Thread c'tor as
is the idomatic way.

This fixes issue 1227

No functional change.
2017-09-01 20:16:56 +02:00
Marco Costalba
45e254a0a0 Restore perft
Rewrite perft to be placed naturally inside new
bench code. In particular we don't have special
custom code to run perft anymore but perft is
just a new parameter of 'go' command.

So user API is now changed, old style command:

$perft 5

becomes

$go perft 4

No functional change.
2017-08-18 09:04:38 -07:00
Marco Costalba
66c5eaebd8 Re-apply the fix for Limits::ponder race
But this time correctly set Threads.ponder

We avoid using 'limits' for passing pondering
flag because we don't want to have 2 ponder
variables in search scope: Search::Limits.ponder
and Threads.ponder. This would be confusing also
because limits.ponder is set at the beginning of
the search and never changes, instead Threads.ponder
can change value asynchronously during search.

No functional change.
2017-08-10 12:47:31 -07:00
Marco Costalba
44236f4ed9 Revert "Fix a race on Limits::ponder"
This reverts commit 5410424e3d.

After the commit pondering is broken, so revert for now. I will
resubmit with a proper fix.

The issue is mine, Joost original code is correct.

No functional change.
2017-08-10 10:59:38 -07:00
Joost VandeVondele
5410424e3d Fix a race on Limits::ponder
Limits::ponder was used as a signal between uci and search threads,
but is not an atomic variable, leading to the following race as
flagged by a sanitized binary.

Expect input:
```
 spawn  ./stockfish
 send "uci\n"
 expect "uciok"
 send "setoption name Ponder value true\n"
 send "go wtime 4000 btime 4000\n"
 expect "bestmove"
 send "position startpos e2e4 d7d5\n"
 send "go wtime 4000 btime 4000 ponder\n"
 sleep 0.01
 send "ponderhit\n"
 expect "bestmove"
 send "quit\n"
 expect eof
```

Race:
```
WARNING: ThreadSanitizer: data race (pid=7191)
  Read of size 4 at 0x0000005c2260 by thread T1:

  Previous write of size 4 at 0x0000005c2260 by main thread:

  Location is global 'Search::Limits' of size 88 at 0x0000005c2220 (stockfish+0x0000005c2260)
```

The reason of teh race is that ponder is not just set in UCI go()
assignment but also is signaled by an async ponderhit in uci.cpp:

      else if (token == "ponderhit")
          Search::Limits.ponder = 0; // Switch to normal search

The fix is to add an atomic bool to the threads structure to
signal the ponder status, letting Search::Limits to reflect just
what was passed to 'go'.

No functional change.
2017-08-10 10:46:46 -07:00
Joost VandeVondele
b40e45c1cc Remove Stack/thread dependence in movepick
as a lower level routine, movepicker should not depend on the
search stack or the thread class, removing a circular dependency.
Instead of copying the search stack into the movepicker object,
as well as accessing the thread class for one of the histories,
pass the required fields explicitly to the constructor (removing
the need for thread.h and implicitly search.h in movepick.cpp).
The signature is thus longer, but more explicit:

Also some renaming of histories structures while there.

passed STC [-3,1], suggesting a small elo impact:

LLR: 3.13 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 381053 W: 68071 L: 68551 D: 244431
elo =   -0.438 +-    0.660 LOS:    9.7%

No functional change.
2017-08-06 01:45:54 -07:00
joergoster
377d77dbe9 Provide selective search depth info for each pv move
No functional change

Closes #1166
2017-07-13 16:30:03 -07:00
Joost VandeVondele
36a93d90f7 Move stop signal to Threads
Instead of having Signals in the search namespace,
make the stop variables part of the Threads structure.
This moves more of the shared (atomic) variables towards
the thread-related structures, making their role more clear.

No functional change

Closes #1149
2017-07-13 16:08:37 -07:00
Marco Costalba
ecd3218b6b History code rewrite (#1122)
Rearrange and rename all history heuristic code. Naming
is now based on chessprogramming.wikispaces.com conventions
and the relations among the various heuristics are now more
clear and consistent.

No functional change.
2017-05-26 08:42:50 +02:00
Marco Costalba
25296547d0 Move Pieces[] out of global visibility
It is an helper array used only in position.cpp

Also small code tidy up while there.

No functional change.

Closes #1106
2017-05-07 20:20:02 -07:00
joergoster
8b15961349 Fix multiPV issue #502
In general, this patch handles the cases where we don't have a valid score for each PV line in a multiPV search. This can happen if the search has been stopped in an unfortunate moment while still in the aspiration loop. The patch consists of two parts.

Part 1: The new PVIdx was already part of the k-best pv's in the last iteration, and we therefore have a valid pv and score to output from the last iteration. This is taken care of with:

      bool updated = (i <= PVIdx && rootMoves[i].score != -VALUE_INFINITE);

Case 2: The new PVIdx was NOT part of the k-best pv's in the last iteration, and we have no valid pv and score to output. Not from the current nor from the previous iteration. To avoid this, we are now also considering the previous score when sorting, so that the PV lines with no actual but with a valid previous score are pushed up again, and the previous score can be displayed.

  bool operator<(const RootMove& m) const {
    return m.score != score ? m.score < score : m.previousScore < previousScore; } // Descending sort

I also added an assertion in UCI::value() to possibly catch similar issues earlier.

No functional change.

Closes #502
Closes #1074
2017-05-03 19:46:40 -07:00
Joost VandeVondele
9da3b44ddc Use int instead of Value for history related stats.
history related scores are not related to evaluation based scores.
For example, can easily exceed the range -VALUE_INFINITE,VALUE_INFINITE.
As such the current type is confusing, and a plain int is a better match.

tested for no regression:

STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 43693 W: 7909 L: 7827 D: 27957

No functional change.

Closes #1070
2017-04-23 07:59:28 -07:00
Joost VandeVondele
d8f683760c Adjust copyright headers to 2017 (#965)
No functional change.
2017-01-11 08:46:29 +01:00
Joost VandeVondele
1b62d413c1 Clean-up skipEarlyPruning (#921)
make skipEarlyPruning a search argument instead of managing this by hand.

Verified for no regression at STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 96754 W: 17089 L: 17095 D: 62570

No functional change.
2016-12-11 20:05:25 +01:00
VoyagerOne
e77f38c431 History Stat Comparison
Adjust LMR by comparing history stats
with opponent (prior ply).

STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 27754 W: 5066 L: 4824 D: 17864

LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 216596 W: 28157 L: 27343 D: 161096

Bench: 5437729
2016-10-25 06:44:19 +02:00
Marco Costalba
057d710fc2 Fix indentation in struct FromToStats
And other little trivial stuff.

No functional change.
2016-09-17 09:51:20 +02:00
ajithcj
8e45e70e55 Don't insert pv back into tt
This code was added before the accurate pv patch, when
we retrieved PV directly from TT.

It's not required for correct (and long) PVs any more and
should be safe to remove it.

Also, allowing helper threads to repeatedly over-write
TT doesn't seem to make sense(that was probably an un-intended
side-effect of lazy smp). Before Lazy SMP only Main Thread used
to run ID loop and insert PV into TT.

STC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 74346 W: 13946 L: 13918 D: 46482

LTC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 47265 W: 6531 L: 6447 D: 34287

bench: 8819179
2016-06-15 08:55:40 +02:00
loco-loco
ec6aab0136 Add a second level of follow-up moves
STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 6438 W: 1229 L: 1077 D: 4132

LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,5.00]
Total: 4000 W: 605 L: 473 D: 2922

bench: 7378965

Resolves #636
2016-04-17 15:19:20 +01:00
Marco Costalba
7eaea3848c StateInfo is usually allocated on the stack by search()
And passed in do_move(), this ensures maximum efficiency and
speed and at the same time unlimited move numbers.

The draw back is that to handle Position init we need to
reserve a StateInfo inside Position itself and use at
init time and when copying from another Position.

After lazy SMP we don't need anymore this gimmick and we can
get rid of this special case and always pass an external
StateInfo to Position object.

Also rewritten and simplified Position constructors.

Verified it does not regress with a 3 threads SMP test:
ELO: -0.00 +-12.7 (95%) LOS: 50.0%
Total: 1000 W: 173 L: 173 D: 654

No functional change.
2016-04-17 08:29:33 +02:00
ppigazzini
d4af15f682 Update AUTHORS and copyright notice
No functional change

Resolves #555
2016-01-02 09:43:51 +00:00
Marco Costalba
9742fb10fd Update Copyright year
No functional change.

Resolves #554
2016-01-01 10:17:36 +00:00
DU-jdto
e3c85c314d Remove another unnecessary Search::Stack field
No functional change

Resolves #535
2015-12-22 17:16:15 +00:00
loco-loco
5bbd944099 Remove unused field SearchStack::ttMove
No functional change

Resolves #533
2015-12-20 20:37:18 +00:00
Leonid Pechenik
69240a982d Simplify time management and fix 'ponder on' bug
Simplify time management code by removing hard stops for unchanging first root moves.
Search is now stopped earlier at the end iteration if it did not have fail-lows at root.

This simplification also fixes pondering bug. Ponder flag was true by default
and cutechess-cli doesn't change it to false even though no pondering is possible.
Fix the issue by setting the default value of 'Ponder' flag to false.

10+0.1:
ELO: 3.51 +-3.0 (95%) LOS: 99.0%
Total: 20000 W: 3898 L: 3696 D: 12406

40+0.4:
ELO: 1.39 +-2.7 (95%) LOS: 84.7%
Total: 20000 W: 3104 L: 3024 D: 13872

60+0.06:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 37231 W: 5333 L: 5236 D: 26662

Stopped run at 100+1:
LLR: 1.09 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 37253 W: 4862 L: 4856 D: 27535

Resolves #523
Fixes #510
2015-12-14 18:00:52 +00:00
mstembera
79f393084a Clean up RootMove less operator
This is used by std::stable_sort() to sort moves from highest score to lowest score.

1) The comment is incorrect since highest to lowest means descending.
2) It's more natural to implement a less operator using another less operator rather than a greater operator.

No functional change.

Resolves #504
2015-11-20 23:30:07 -08:00
Marco Costalba
9c9205860c Get rid of timer thread
Unfortunately std::condition_variable::wait_for()
is not accurate in general case and the timer thread
can wake up also after tens or even hundreds of
millisecs after time has elapsded. CPU load, process
priorities, number of concurrent threads, even from
other processes, will have effect upon it.

Even official documentation says: "This function may
block for longer than timeout_duration due to scheduling
or resource contention delays."

So retire timer and use a polling scheme based on a
local thread counter that counts search() calls and
a small trick to keep polling frequency constant,
independently from the number of threads.

Tested for no regression at very fast TC 2+0.05 th 7:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 32969 W: 6720 L: 6620 D: 19629

TC 2+0.05 th 1:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 7765 W: 1917 L: 1765 D: 4083

And at STC TC, both single thread
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 15587 W: 3036 L: 2905 D: 9646

And with 7 threads
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 8149 W: 1367 L: 1227 D: 5555

bench: 8639247
2015-11-03 11:27:00 +01:00
Marco Costalba
86f04dbcc0 Assorted trivia in search.cpp
The only interesting change is the moving of
stack[MAX_PLY+4] back to its original position
in id_loop (now renamed Thread::search).

No functional change.
2015-10-31 19:26:35 +01:00
Stéphane Nicolet
80d7556af7 Some code and comment cleanup
- Remove all references to split points
- Some grammar and spelling fixes

No Functional change

Resolves #478
2015-10-29 15:28:59 +00:00
lucasart
00d9e9fd28 Use atomics instead of volatile
Rely on well defined behaviour for message passing, instead of volatile. Three
versions have been tested, to make sure this wouldn't cause a slowdown on any
platform.

v1: Sequentially consistent atomics

No mesurable regression, despite the extra memory barriers on x86. Even with 15
threads and extreme time pressure, both acting as a magnifying glass:

threads=15, tc=2+0.02
ELO: 2.59 +-3.4 (95%) LOS: 93.3%
Total: 18132 W: 4113 L: 3978 D: 10041

threads=7, tc=2+0.02
ELO: -1.64 +-3.6 (95%) LOS: 18.8%
Total: 16914 W: 4053 L: 4133 D: 8728

v2: Acquire/Release semantics

This version generates no extra barriers for x86 (on the hot path). As expected,
no regression either, under the same conditions:

threads=15, tc=2+0.02
ELO: 2.85 +-3.3 (95%) LOS: 95.4%
Total: 19661 W: 4640 L: 4479 D: 10542

threads=7, tc=2+0.02
ELO: 0.23 +-3.5 (95%) LOS: 55.1%
Total: 18108 W: 4326 L: 4314 D: 9468

As suggested by Joona, another test at LTC:

threads=15, tc=20+0.05
ELO: 0.64 +-2.6 (95%) LOS: 68.3%
Total: 20000 W: 3053 L: 3016 D: 13931

v3: Final version: SeqCst/Relaxed

threads=15, tc=10+0.1
ELO: 0.87 +-3.9 (95%) LOS: 67.1%
Total: 9541 W: 1478 L: 1454 D: 6609

Resolves #474
2015-10-25 09:15:45 +00:00
mbootsector
ecc5ff6693 Lazy SMP
Start all threads searching on root position and
use only the shared TT table as synching scheme.

It seems this scheme scales better than YBWC for
high number of threads.

Verified for nor regression at STC 3 threads
LLR: -2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 40232 W: 6908 L: 7130 D: 26194

Verified for nor regression at LTC 3 threads
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 28186 W: 3908 L: 3798 D: 20480

Verified for nor regression at STC 7 threads
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 3607 W: 674 L: 526 D: 2407

Verified for nor regression at LTC 7 threads
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 4235 W: 671 L: 528 D: 3036

Tested with fixed games at LTC with 20 threads
ELO: 44.75 +-7.6 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 2069 W: 407 L: 142 D: 1520

Tested with fixed games at XLTC (120secs) with 20 threads
ELO: 28.01 +-6.7 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 2275 W: 349 L: 166 D: 1760

Original patch of mbootsector, with additional work
from Ivan Ivec (log formula), Joerg Oster (id loop
simplification) and Marco Costalba (assorted formatting
and rework).

Bench: 8116244
2015-10-20 06:58:08 +02:00
VoyagerOne
a2410227cc PV refutation penalty
Extra penalty for PV move in previous ply when it gets refuted.

STC:
LLR: 4.49 (-2.94,2.94) [-1.50,4.50]
Total: 41094 W: 7889 L: 7620 D: 25585

LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,6.00]
Total: 12304 W: 1967 L: 1811 D: 8526

Bench: 8373608

Resolves #386
2015-07-30 00:51:49 +08:00
lucasart
2e86d1febc Restore deterministic search state
Introduce helper function Search::reset() which clears all kind of search
memory, in order to restore a deterministic search state.

Generalize TT.clear() into Search::reset() for the following use cases:
- bench: needed to guarantee deterministic bench (ie. if you call bench from
interactive command line twice in a row you get the same value).
- Clear Hash: restore clean search state, which is the purpose of this button.
- ucinewgame: ditto.

No functional change.

Resolves #346
2015-05-07 14:20:32 -07:00
Marco Costalba
926f215061 Add support for playing in 'nodes as time' mode
When running more games in parallel, or simply when running a game
with a background process, due to how OS scheduling works, there is no
guarantee that the CPU resources allocated evenly between the two
players. This introduces noise in the result that leads to unreliable
result and in the worst cases can even invalidate the result. For
instance in SF test framework we avoid running from clouds virtual
machines because are a known source of very unstable CPU speed.

To overcome this issue, without requiring changes to the GUI, the idea
is to use searched nodes instead of time, and to convert time to
available nodes upfront, at the beginning of the game.

When nodestime UCI option is set at a given nodes per milliseconds
(npmsec), at the beginning of the game (and only once), the engine
reads the available time to think, sent by the GUI with 'go wtime x'
UCI command. Then it translates time in available nodes (nodes =
npmsec * x), then feeds available nodes instead of time to the time
management logic and starts the search. During the search the engine
checks the searched nodes against the available ones in such a way
that all the time management logic still fully applies, and the game
mimics a real one played on real time. When the search finishes,
before returning best move, the total available nodes are updated,
subtracting the real searched nodes. After the first move, the time
information sent by the GUI is ignored, and the engine fully relies on
the updated total available nodes to feed time management.

To avoid time losses, the speed of the engine (npms) must be set to a
value lower than real speed so that if the real TC is for instance 30
secs, and npms is half of the real speed, the game will last on
average 15 secs, so much less than the TC limit, providing for a
safety 'time buffer'.

There are 2 main limitations with this mode.

1. Engine speed should be the same for both players, and this limits
the approach to mainly parameter tuning patches.

2. Because npms is fixed while, in real engines, the speed increases
toward endgame, this introduces an artifact that is equivalent to an
altered time management. Namely it is like the time management gives
less available time than what should be in standard case.

May be the second limitation could be mitigated in a future with a
smarter 'dynamic npms' approach.

Tests shows that the standard deviation of the results with 'nodestime'
is lower than in standard TC, as is expected because now all the introduced
noise due the random speed variability of the engines during the game is
fully removed.

Original NIT idea by Michael Hoffman that shows how to play in NIT mode
without requiring changes to the GUI. This implementation goes a bit
further, the key difference is that we read TC from GUI only once upfront
instead of re-reading after every move as in Michael's implementation.

No functional change.
2015-04-03 04:40:55 +02:00
Marco Costalba
5d1b92e8f9 Introduce elapsed_time()
And reformat a bit time manager code.

Note that now we set starting search time in think() and
no more in ThreadPool::start_thinking(), the added delay
is less than 1 msec, so below timer resolution (5msec) and
should not affect time lossses ratio.

No functional change.
2015-04-03 04:19:26 +02:00
Marco Costalba
0b36ba74fc Don't assume the type of Time::point
But instead use the proper definition. Also
rewrite chrono functions while there.

No functional change.
2015-02-24 14:08:14 +01:00
Marco Costalba
81d6c4a0d6 Another small tweak to skills
No functional change.
2015-01-31 18:24:39 +01:00
Marco Costalba
45eac9507c Use C++ loops in insert_pv_in_tt
Also small tweak to extract_ponder_from_tt

No functional change.
2015-01-31 12:57:52 +01:00
Marco Costalba
f6f1d24223 Sync with master
bench: 7374604
2015-01-30 17:58:18 +01:00
Marco Costalba
44643c2770 Try hard to retrieve a ponder move
In case we stop the search during a fail-high
it is possible we return to GUI without a ponder
move. This patch try harder to find a ponder move
retrieving it from TT. This is important in games
played with 'ponder on'.

bench: 8080602

Resolves #221
2015-01-24 19:35:31 +00:00
Marco Costalba
3c07603dac Import C++11 branch
Import C++11 branch from:

https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish/tree/c++11

The version imported is teh last one as of today:
6670e93e50

Branch is fully equivalent with master but syzygy
tablebases that are missing (but will be added with
next commit).

bench: 8080602
2015-01-18 08:00:50 +01:00