revert 9048ac00db due to core spread problem and fix new OS compatibility with another method.
This code assumes that if one NUMA node has more than one processor groups, they are created equal(having equal amount of cores assigned to each of the groups), and also the total number of available cores contained in such groups are equal to the number of available cores within one NUMA node because of how best_node function works.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3798
fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3787
No functional change.
retire msvc support and corresponding CI. No active development happens on msvc,
and build is much slower or wrong.
gcc (mingw) is our toolchain of choice also on windows, and the latter is tested.
No functional change
Current master implements a scaling of the raw NNUE output value with a formula
equivalent to 'eval = alpha * NNUE_output', where the scale factor alpha varies
between 1.8 (for early middle game) and 0.9 (for pure endgames). This feature
allows Stockfish to keep material on the board when she thinks she has the advantage,
and to seek exchanges and simplifications when she thinks she has to defend.
This patch slightly offsets the turning point between these two strategies, by adding
to Stockfish's evaluation a small "optimism" value before actually doing the scaling.
The effect is that SF will play a little bit more risky, trying to keep the tension a
little bit longer when she is defending, and keeping even more material on the board
when she has an advantage.
We note that this patch is similar in spirit to the old "Contempt" idea we used to have
in classical Stockfish, but this implementation differs in two key points:
a) it has been tested as an Elo-gainer against master;
b) the values output by the search are not changed on average by the implementation
(in other words, the optimism value changes the tension/exchange strategy, but a
displayed value of 1.0 pawn has the same signification before and after the patch).
See the old comment https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1361#issuecomment-359165141
for some images illustrating the ideas.
-------
finished yellow at STC:
LLR: -2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,2.50>
Total: 165048 W: 41705 L: 41611 D: 81732
Ptnml(0-2): 565, 18959, 43245, 19327, 428
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/61942a3dcd645dc8291c876b
passed LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.00>
Total: 121656 W: 30762 L: 30287 D: 60607
Ptnml(0-2): 87, 12558, 35032, 13095, 56
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/61962c58cd645dc8291c8877
-------
How to continue from there?
a) the shape (slope and amplitude) of the sigmoid used to compute the optimism value
could be tweaked to try to gain more Elo, so the parameters of the sigmoid function
in line 391 of search.cpp could be tuned with SPSA. Manual tweaking is also possible
using this Desmos page: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/jhh83sqq92
b) in a similar vein, with two recents patches affecting the scaling of the NNUE
evaluation in evaluate.cpp, now could be a good time to try a round of SPSA tuning
of the NNUE network;
c) this patch will tend to keep tension in middlegame a little bit longer, so any
patch improving the defensive aspect of play via search extensions in risky,
tactical positions would be welcome.
-------
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3797
Bench: 6184852
Starting with Windows Build 20348 the behavior of the numa API has been changed:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/procthread/numa-support
Old code only worked because there was probably a limit on how many
cores/threads can reside within one NUMA node, and the OS creates extra NUMA
nodes when necessary, however the actual mechanism of core binding is
done by "Processor Groups"(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/procthread/processor-groups). With a newer OS, one NUMA node can have many
such "Processor Groups" and we should just consistently use the number
of groups to bind the threads instead of deriving the topology from
the number of NUMA nodes.
This change is required to spread threads on all cores on Windows 11 with
a 3990X CPU. It has only 1 NUMA node with 2 groups of 64 threads each.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3787
No functional change.
In case the evaluation at root is large, discourage the use of lazyEval.
This fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/3772
or at least improves it significantly. In this case, poor play with large
odds can be observed, in extreme cases leading to a loss despite large
advantage:
r1bq1b1r/ppp3p1/3p1nkp/n3p3/2B1P2N/2NPB3/PPP2PPP/R3K2R b KQ - 5 9
With this patch the poor move is only considered up to depth 13, in master
up to depth 28.
The patch did not pass at LTC with Elo gainer bounds, but with slightly
positive Elo nevertheless (95% LOS).
STC:
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,2.50>
Total: 40368 W: 10318 L: 10041 D: 20009
Ptnml(0-2): 103, 4493, 10725, 4750, 113
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/61800ad259e71df00dcc420d
LTC:
LLR: -2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.00>
Total: 212288 W: 52997 L: 52692 D: 106599
Ptnml(0-2): 112, 22038, 61549, 22323, 122
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/618050d959e71df00dcc426d
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3780
Bench: 7127040
Maintain for each root move an exponential average of the search value with a weight ratio of 2:1 (new value vs old values). Then the average score is used as the center of the initial aspiration window instead of the previous score.
Stats indicate (see PR) that the deviation for previous score is in general greater than using average score, so later seems a better estimation of the next search value. This is probably the reason this patch succeded besides smoothing the sometimes wild swings in search score. An additional observation is that at higher depth previous score is above but average score below zero. So for average score more/less fail/low highs should be occur than previous score.
STC:
LLR: 2.97 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,2.50>
Total: 59792 W: 15106 L: 14792 D: 29894
Ptnml(0-2): 144, 6718, 15869, 7010, 155
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/61841612d7a085ad008eef06
LTC:
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.00>
Total: 46448 W: 11835 L: 11537 D: 23076
Ptnml(0-2): 21, 4756, 13374, 5050, 23
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/618463abd7a085ad008eef3e
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3776
Bench: 6719976
Currently we handle the UCI_Elo with a double randomization. This
seems not necessary and a bit involuted.
This patch removes the first randomization and unifies the 2 cases.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3769
No functional change.
To help with debugging, the worker sends the output of
stderr (suitable truncated) to the action log on the
server, in case a build fails. For this to work it is
important that there is no spurious output to stderr.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3773
No functional change
Official release version of Stockfish 14.1
Bench: 6334068
---
Today, we have the pleasure to announce Stockfish 14.1.
As usual, downloads will be freely available at stockfishchess.org/download [1].
With Stockfish 14.1 our users get access to the strongest chess engine
available today. In the period leading up to this release, Stockfish
convincingly won several chess engine tournaments, including the TCEC 21
superfinal, the TCEC Cup 9, and the Computer Chess Championship for
Fischer Random Chess (Chess960). In the latter tournament, Stockfish
was undefeated in 599 out of 600 games played.
Compared to Stockfish 14, this release introduces a more advanced NNUE
architecture and various search improvements. In self play testing, using
a book of balanced openings, Stockfish 14.1 wins three times more game
pairs than it loses [2]. At this high level, draws are very common, so the
Elo difference to Stockfish 14 is about 17 Elo. The NNUE evaluation method,
introduced to top level chess with Stockfish 12 about one year ago [3],
has now been adopted by several other strong CPU based chess engines.
The Stockfish project builds on a thriving community of enthusiasts
(thanks everybody!) that contribute their expertise, time, and resources
to build a free and open-source chess engine that is robust,
widely available, and very strong. We invite our chess fans to join the
fishtest testing framework and programmers to contribute to the project [4].
Stay safe and enjoy chess!
The Stockfish team
[1] https://stockfishchess.org/download/
[2] https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6175c320af70c2be1788fa2b
[3] https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/discussions/3628
[4] https://stockfishchess.org/get-involved/
Idea of this patch is the following: in case we already have four moves that
exceeded alpha in the current node, the probability of finding fifth should
be reasonably low. Note that four is completely arbitrary - there could and
probably should be some tweaks, both in tweaking best move count threshold
for more reductions and tweaking how they work - for example making more
reductions with best move count linearly.
passed STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/615f614783dd501a05b0aee2
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-0.50,2.50>
Total: 141816 W: 36056 L: 35686 D: 70074
Ptnml(0-2): 499, 15131, 39273, 15511, 494
passed LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/615fdff683dd501a05b0af35
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.50>
Total: 68536 W: 17221 L: 16891 D: 34424
Ptnml(0-2): 38, 6573, 20725, 6885, 47
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3736
Bench: 6131513
This patch updates the stat_bonus() function (used in the history tables to
help move ordering), keeping the same quadratic for small depths but changing
the values for depth >= 9:
The old bonus formula was increasing from zero at depth 1 to 4100 at depth 14,
then used the strange, small value of 73 for all depths >= 15.
The new bonus formula increases from 0 at depth 1 to 2000 at depth 8, then
keeps 2000 for all depths >= 8.
passed STC:
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-0.50,2.50>
Total: 169624 W: 42875 L: 42454 D: 84295
Ptnml(0-2): 585, 19340, 44557, 19729, 601
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/615bd69e9d256038a969b97c
passed LTC:
LLR: 3.07 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.50>
Total: 37336 W: 9456 L: 9191 D: 18689
Ptnml(0-2): 20, 3810, 10747, 4067, 24
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/615c75d99d256038a969b9b2
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3731
Bench: 6261865
When playing games in MultiPV mode we must take care to only track the
best move changing for the first PV line. Otherwise, SF will spend most
of its time for the initial moves after the book exit.
This has been observed and reported on Discord, but can also be seen in
games played in Stefan Pohl's MultiPV experiment.
Tested with MultiPV=4.
STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/615c24b59d256038a969b990
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <-0.50,2.50>
Total: 1744 W: 694 L: 447 D: 603
Ptnml(0-2): 32, 125, 358, 278, 79
LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/615c31769d256038a969b993
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.50>
Total: 2048 W: 723 L: 525 D: 800
Ptnml(0-2): 10, 158, 511, 314, 31
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3729
Bench: 5714575
Respin of multi-thread idea that was simplified away recently: basically doing
more reductions with thread count since Lazy SMP naturally widens search. With
drawish book this idea got simplified away but with less drawish book it again
gains elo, maybe trying to reinstall other ideas that were simplified away
previously can be beneficial.
passed STC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) <-0.50,2.50>
Total: 39736 W: 10205 L: 9986 D: 19545
Ptnml(0-2): 45, 4254, 11064, 4447, 58
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/615750702d02f48db3961b00
passed LTC
LLR: 2.97 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.50>
Total: 60352 W: 15530 L: 15218 D: 29604
Ptnml(0-2): 24, 5900, 18016, 6212, 24
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6157d8935488e26ea5eace7f
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3724
Bench 5714575
Idea is to extend some quiet ttMoves if a lot of things indicate that
the transposition table move is going to be a good move:
1) move being a killer - so being the best move in nearby node;
2) reply continuation history is really good.
This is basically saying that move is good "in general" in this position,
that it is a good reply to the opponent move and that it was the best in
this position somewhere in search - so extending it makes a lot of sense.
In general in past year we had a lot of extensions of different types,
maybe there is something more in it :)
passed STC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) <-0.50,2.50>
Total: 42944 W: 10932 L: 10695 D: 21317
Ptnml(0-2): 141, 4869, 11210, 5116, 136
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/614cca8e7bdc23e77ceb89f0
passed LTC
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.50>
Total: 156848 W: 39473 L: 38893 D: 78482
Ptnml(0-2): 125, 16327, 44913, 16961, 98
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/614cf93d7bdc23e77ceb8a13
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3719
Bench: 5714575
In master, during singular move analysis, when both the transposition value
and a reduced search for the other moves seem to indicate a fail high, we
heuristically prune the whole subtree and return an fail high score.
This patch is a little bit more cautious in this case, and instead of the
risky cutoff, we now search the ttMove with a reduced depth (by two plies).
STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/614dafe07bdc23e77ceb8a89
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-0.50,2.50>
Total: 46728 W: 11909 L: 11666 D: 23153
Ptnml(0-2): 181, 5288, 12168, 5561, 166
LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/614dc84abe4c07e0ecac3c95
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.50>
Total: 74520 W: 18809 L: 18450 D: 37261
Ptnml(0-2): 45, 7735, 21346, 8084, 50
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3718
Bench: 5499262
This patch relax a little bit the condition for doubly singular moves
(ie moves that are so forced that we think that they deserve a local
double extension of the search). We lower the margin and allow up to
six such double extensions in the path between the root and the critical
node.
Original idea by Siad Daboul (@TopoIogist) in PR #3709
Tested with the previous commit:
passed STC:
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-0.50,2.50>
Total: 33048 W: 8458 L: 8236 D: 16354
Ptnml(0-2): 120, 3701, 8660, 3923, 120
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/614b24347bdc23e77ceb88fe
passed LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <0.50,3.50>
Total: 54176 W: 13712 L: 13406 D: 27058
Ptnml(0-2): 36, 5653, 15399, 5969, 31
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/614b3b727bdc23e77ceb8911
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3714
Bench: 5792377
This patch detects some search explosions (due to double extensions in
search.cpp) which can happen in some pathological positions, and takes
measures to ensure progress in search even for these pathological situations.
While a small number of double extensions can be useful during search
(for example to resolve a tactical sequence), a sustained regime of
double extensions leads to search explosion and a non-finishing search.
See the discussion in https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3544
and the issue https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/3532 .
The implemented algorithm is the following:
a) at each node during search, store the current depth in the stack.
Double extensions are by definition levels of the stack where the
depth at ply N is strictly higher than depth at ply N-1.
b) during search, calculate for each thread a running average of the
number of double extensions in the last 4096 visited nodes.
c) if one thread has more than 2% of double extensions for a sustained
period of time (6 millions consecutive nodes, or about 4 seconds on
my iMac), we decide that this thread is in an explosion state and
we calm down this thread by preventing it to do any double extension
for the next 6 millions nodes.
To calculate the running averages, we also introduced a auxiliary class
generalizing the computations of ttHitAverage variable we already had in
code. The implementation uses an exponential moving average of period 4096
and resolution 1/1024, and all computations are done with integers for
efficiency.
-----------
Example where the patch solves a search explosion:
```
./stockfish
ucinewgame
position fen 8/Pk6/8/1p6/8/P1K5/8/6B1 w - - 37 130
go infinite
```
This algorithm does not affect search in normal, non-pathological positions.
We verified, for instance, that the usual bench is unchanged up to depth 20
at least, and that the node numbers are unchanged for a search of the starting
position at depth 32.
-------------
See https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3714
Bench: 5575265
