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.
Verified with perft there is no speed regression,
and code is simpler. It is also conceptually correct
becuase an extended move is just a move that happens
to have also a score.
No functional change.
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
On platforms where size_t is 32 bit, we
can have an overflow in this expression:
(mbSize * 1024 * 1024)
Fix it setting max hash size of 2GB on platforms
where size_t is 32 bit.
A small rename while there: now struct Cluster
is definied inside class TranspositionTable so
we should drop the redundant TT prefix.
No functional change.
Adds support for Syzygy tablebases to Stockfish. See
the Readme for information on using the tablebases.
Tablebase support can be enabled/disabled at the Makefile
level as well, by setting syzygy=yes or syzygy=no.
Big/little endian are both supported.
No functional change (if Tablebases are not used).
Resolves#6
Stockfish allocates the default hash (32MB) in main(), before entering UCI::loop(). If there is not enough
memory, the program will crash even before UCI::loop() is entered and the GUI is given a change to specify a
lower Hash value.
This defective design could be resolved by doing a lazy allocation upon "isready" command, as the UCI protocol
guarantees that "isready" will be sent at least once before any search. But it's a bit cumbersome when using
Stockfish "manually" to have to remember to type "isready" everytime.
So leave the current design, but reduce the default hash to 16MB instread of 32MB. In order to perform such
quick searches (depth=13), there is no reason to use so much Hash anyway. Another benefit is to introduce a
bit of hash pressure in bench, which increases chances to detect rare bugs related to TT replacement, for
example.
This is not a functional change, although it obviously changes the bench.
bench 7461879
Despite being neutral at STC, it turned out to be regressive at LTC:
40k games at LTC with Hash=8
ELO: -2.06 +-1.9 (95%) LOS: 1.4%
Total: 39720 W: 5740 L: 5976 D: 28004
40k games at LTC with Hash=128
ELO: -2.69 +-1.9 (95%) LOS: 0.2%
Total: 39149 W: 5702 L: 6005 D: 27442
bench 7477963
Also raise the admissible bounds to (-100,100), as there is no reason to prevent users from using high
values if they want to.
Does not regress in self play:
ELO: 0.10 +-2.0 (95%) LOS: 53.7%
Total: 40000 W: 7084 L: 7073 D: 25843
master vs SF 3
ELO: 182.86 +-2.7 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 40000 W: 21843 L: 2541 D: 15616
Contempt = 20 vs SF 3
ELO: 189.25 +-2.8 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 40000 W: 22721 L: 2859 D: 14420
Diff is therefore 6.4 +/- 3.9 elo against a 180-190 elo weaker engine, which is significantly positive,
as expected. This elo difference is likely understated, because of FishTest aggressive draw adjudication
though.
We could push Contempt further, but after 20cp, it would get in the way of FishTest draw adjudication
rule, and is likely to reduce the testing throughput as a result.
bench 8198667
Book handling belongs to GUI, we kept this code
for historical reasons, but nowdays there is
really no need of this old, (mostly) unused
and especially incorrect designed functionality.
It is up to the GUI to choose the book (far easier for
the user) and to select the book parameters. In no
place, including fishtest, TCEC, rating lists, etc.
the "own book" is used, moreover currently SF is
released without any book and even if in the future we
bundle a book in the release package, it will be the GUI
that will take care of it.
This corrects a wrong design decision that Galurung
and later Stockfish inherited from what was common
practice many yeas ago.
No functional change.
There is really little that user can achieve (apart
from a weakened engine) tweaking these parameters
that are already tuned and have no immediate or visible
effect.
So better do not expose them to the user and avoid the
typical "What is the best setup for my machine?" kind of
question (by far the most common, by far the most useless).
No functional change.
Retire current asymmetric king evaluation
and use a much simpler symmetric one.
As a side effect retire the infamous
'Aggressiveness' and 'Cowardice' UCI
options.
Tested in no-regression mode,
Passed both STC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 33855 W: 5863 L: 5764 D: 22228
And LTC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 40571 W: 5852 L: 5760 D: 28959
bench: 8321835
After last Joona's patch there is no measurable
difference between the option set or unset.
Tested by Andreas Strangmüller with 16 threads
on his Dual Opteron 6376.
After 5000 games at 15+0.05 the result is:
1 Stockfish_14050822_T16_on : 3003 5000 (+849,=3396,-755), 50.9 %
2 Stockfish_14050822_T16_off : 2997 5000 (+755,=3396,-849), 49.1 %
bench: 880215
We want all the UCI options are printed in the order in which are
assigned, so we use an index that, depending on Options.size(),
increases after each option is added to the map. The problem is
that, for instance, in the first assignment:
o["Write Debug Log"] = Option(false, on_logger);
Options.size() can value 0 or 1 according if the l-value (that
increments the size) has been evaluated after or before the
r-value (that uses the size value).
The culprit is that assignment operator in C++ is not a
sequence point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_point
(Note: to be nitpick here we actually use std::map::operator=()
that being a function can evaluate its arguments in any order)
So there is no guarantee on what term is evaluated first and
behavior is undefined by standard in this case. The net result
is that in case r-value is evaluated after l-value the last
idx is not size() - 1, but size() and in the printing loop
we miss the last option!
Bug was there since ages but only recently has been exposed by
the removal of UCI_Analyze option so that the last one becomes
UCI_Chess960 and when it is missing engine cannot play anymore
Chess960.
The fix is trivial (although a bit hacky): just increase the
last loop index.
Reported by Eric Mullins that found it on an ARM and MIPS
platforms with gcc 4.7
No functional change.
It has been obsoleted out already some time ago
and currently there is no point in changing eval
score according to if we are in game or analyzing.
So retire the option.
No functional change.
TCEC season 3, which is due to start in a few weeks, just
had its server upgraded to 64GB RAM and will therefore allow
16GB hash to be used per engine.
This is almost the upper limit without changing the
type of size and hashMask. After this we need to
move to uint64_t instead of uint32_t.
No functional change.
These two changes go in opposite directions and it
seems that the combination is stronger than original.
Here are the positive tests at various TC:
15+0.05
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-1.50,4.50]
Total: 24561 W: 4946 L: 4772 D: 14843
60+0.05
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,6.00]
Total: 15259 W: 2598 L: 2423 D: 10238
40/30
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,3.00]
Total: 2570 W: 527 L: 422 D: 1621
Unfortunately there is also a bad result
with one sec time increment that needs
to be further investigated:
12+1
LLR: -2.97 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,3.00]
Total: 2694 W: 438 L: 543 D: 1713
bench: 8340585
This is an even safer setup proposed and tested
by Alexandre Meirelles.
Regression testing of 40K games at 10+0.05 show
result is stable both against current master:
ELO: -0.29 +-2.2 (95%) LOS: 39.7%
Total: 40000 W: 8010 L: 8043 D: 23947
and again original master (the one with smallest
time parameters):
ELO: 1.71 +-2.2 (95%) LOS: 93.8%
Total: 40000 W: 8325 L: 8128 D: 23547
Alexandre verified with LittleBlitzer time losses are
greately reduced with this setup:
Games Completed = 2100 of 3000 (Avg game length = 35.745 sec)
Settings = RR/128MB/15000ms+50ms/M 1000cp for 12 moves, D 150 moves/
Time = 39200 sec elapsed, 16800 sec remaining
1. Stockfish 190913 1091.5/2100 803-720-577 (L: m=313 t=1 i=0 a=406) (D: r=278 i=91 f=136 s=8 a=64) (tpm=212.5 d=14.75 nps=925427)
2. Houdini 2.0 w32 1008.5/2100 720-803-577 (L: m=250 t=299 i=0 a=254) (D: r=278 i=91 f=136 s=8 a=64) (tpm=204.1 d=12.04 nps=1326351)
No functional change.
Goes in the direction of avoiding time losses and seems
equivalent after almost 40K games at super fast TC of 10+0.05
ELO: 2.61 +-2.2 (95%) LOS: 99.1%
Total: 39869 W: 8258 L: 7959 D: 23652
No functional change.
Goes in the direction of avoiding time losses and seems
equivalent after almost 40K games at super fast TC of 10+0.05
ELO: 2.41 +-2.3 (95%) LOS: 98.1%
Total: 37222 W: 7843 L: 7585 D: 21794
No functional change.
The ideal setting for super-blitz might be something like:
"Emergency Base Time" = 50
"Emergency Move Time" = 5
This would give a total emergency time buffer of:
50 + 40 * 5 = 250 ms
This setup replaces the previous half cooked hack
"Don't blunder under extreme time pressure".
Test results are very good at super blitz, but keep good even
at 60 secs.
At 5+0.05
ELO: 24.30 +-2.4 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 37802 W: 10060 L: 7420 D: 20322
At 15+0.05
ELO: 13.41 +-2.9 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 22271 W: 4853 L: 3994 D: 13424
At 60+0.05
ELO: 5.30 +-3.2 (95%) LOS: 99.9%
Total: 16000 W: 2897 L: 2653 D: 10450
No functional change.
Set threads number always to 1 at startup and let the
user explicitly to chose the number of threads.
Also preserve the useful behavior of automatically set
"Min Split Depth" according to the requested threads,
indeed this parameter is too technical for a casual user,
so, when left to zero, we set it on a sensible value.
No functional change
Thanks to Don, Miguel, Louis and the other people
of talkchess forum for the suggestion:
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48612
Also sync polyglot.ini with current UCI options
No functional change.
