Official release version of Stockfish 12
Bench: 3624569
-----------------------
It is our pleasure to release Stockfish 12 to users world-wide
Downloads will be freely available at
https://stockfishchess.org/download/
This version 12 of Stockfish plays significantly stronger than
any of its predecessors. In a match against Stockfish 11,
Stockfish 12 will typically win at least ten times more game pairs
than it loses.
This jump in strength, visible in regular progression tests during
development[1], results from the introduction of an efficiently
updatable neural network (NNUE) for the evaluation in Stockfish[2],
and associated tuning of the engine as a whole. The concept of the
NNUE evaluation was first introduced in shogi, and ported to
Stockfish afterward. Stockfish remains a CPU-only engine, since the
NNUE networks can be very efficiently evaluated on CPUs. The
recommended parameters of the NNUE network are embedded in
distributed binaries, and Stockfish will use NNUE by default.
Both the NNUE and the classical evaluations are available, and
can be used to assign values to positions that are later used in
alpha-beta (PVS) search to find the best move. The classical
evaluation computes this value as a function of various chess
concepts, handcrafted by experts, tested and tuned using fishtest.
The NNUE evaluation computes this value with a neural network based
on basic inputs. The network is optimized and trained on the
evaluations of millions of positions.
The Stockfish project builds on a thriving community of enthusiasts
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 chess fans to join the fishtest testing
framework and programmers to contribute on github[3].
Stay safe and enjoy chess!
The Stockfish team
[1] https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki/Regression-Tests
[2] 84f3e86790
[3] https://stockfishchess.org/get-involved/
std::sort() is not stable so different implementations can produce different results:
use the stable version instead.
Observed for '8/6k1/5r2/8/8/8/1K6/Q7 w - - 0 1' yielding different bench results for gcc and MSVC
and 3-4-5 syzygy TB prior to this patch.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3083
No functional change.
covers the most important cases from the user perspective:
It embeds the default net in the binary, so a download of that binary will result
in a working engine with the default net. The engine will be functional in the default mode
without any additional user action.
It allows non-default nets to be used, which will be looked for in up to
three directories (working directory, location of the binary, and optionally a specific default directory).
This mechanism is also kept for those developers that use MSVC,
the one compiler that doesn't have an easy mechanism for embedding data.
It is possible to disable embedding, and instead specify a specific directory, e.g. linux distros might want to use
CXXFLAGS="-DNNUE_EMBEDDING_OFF -DDEFAULT_NNUE_DIRECTORY=/usr/share/games/stockfish/" make -j ARCH=x86-64 profile-build
passed STC non-regression:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f4a581c150f0aef5f8ae03a
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) {-1.25,-0.25}
Total: 66928 W: 7202 L: 7147 D: 52579
Ptnml(0-2): 291, 5309, 22211, 5360, 293
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3070
fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/3030
No functional change.
This patch removes the EvalList structure from the Position object and generally simplifies the interface between do_move() and the NNUE code.
The NNUE evaluation function first calculates the "accumulator". The accumulator consists of two halves: one for white's perspective, one for black's perspective.
If the "friendly king" has moved or the accumulator for the parent position is not available, the accumulator for this half has to be calculated from scratch. To do this, the NNUE node needs to know the positions and types of all non-king pieces and the position of the friendly king. This information can easily be obtained from the Position object.
If the "friendly king" has not moved, its half of the accumulator can be calculated by incrementally updating the accumulator for the previous position. For this, the NNUE code needs to know which pieces have been added to which squares and which pieces have been removed from which squares. In principle this information can be derived from the Position object and StateInfo struct (in the same way as undo_move() does this). However, it is probably a bit faster to prepare this information in do_move(), so I have kept the DirtyPiece struct. Since the DirtyPiece struct now stores the squares rather than "PieceSquare" indices, there are now at most three "dirty pieces" (previously two). A promotion move that captures a piece removes the capturing pawn and the captured piece from the board (to SQ_NONE) and moves the promoted piece to the promotion square (from SQ_NONE).
An STC test has confirmed a small speedup:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f43f06b5089a564a10d850a
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {-0.25,1.25}
Total: 87704 W: 9763 L: 9500 D: 68441
Ptnml(0-2): 426, 6950, 28845, 7197, 434
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3068
No functional change
to prevent user errors or generating untested code,
check explicitly that the ARCH variable is equivalent to a supported architecture
as listed in `make help`.
To nevertheless compile for an untested target the user can override the internal
variable, passing the undocumented `SUPPORTED_ARCH=true` to make.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3062
No functional change.
Fix the issue where a TT entry with key16==0 would always be reported
as a miss. Instead, we'll use depth8 to detect whether the TT entry is
occupied. In order to do that, we'll change DEPTH_OFFSET to -7
(depth8==0) to distinguish between an unoccupied entry and the
otherwise lowest possible depth, i.e., DEPTH_NONE (depth8==1).
To prevent a performance regression, we'll reorder the TT entry fields
by the access order of TranspositionTable::probe(). Memory in general
works fastest when accessed in sequential order. We'll also match the
store order in TTEntry::save() with the entry field order, and
re-order the 'if-or' expressions in TTEntry::save() from the cheapest
to the most expensive.
Finally, as we now have a proper TT entry occupancy test, we'll fix a
minor corner case with hashfull reporting. To reproduce:
- Use a big hash
- Either:
a. Start 31 very quick searches (this wraparounds generation to 0); or
b. Force generation of the first search to 0.
- go depth infinite
Before the fix, hashfull would incorrectly report nearly full hash
immediately after the search start, since
TranspositionTable::hashfull() used to consider only the entry
generation and not whether the entry was actually occupied.
STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) {-0.25,1.25}
Total: 36848 W: 4091 L: 3898 D: 28859
Ptnml(0-2): 158, 2996, 11972, 3091, 207
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f3f98d5dc02a01a0c2881f7
LTC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) {0.25,1.25}
Total: 32280 W: 1828 L: 1653 D: 28799
Ptnml(0-2): 34, 1428, 13051, 1583, 44
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f3fe77a87a5c3c63d8f5332
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3048
Bench: 3760677
due to downclocking on current chips (tested up to cascade lake)
supporting avx512 and vnni512, it is better to use avx2 or vnni256
in multithreaded (in particular hyperthreaded) engine use.
In single threaded use, the picture is different.
gcc compilation for vnni256 requires a toolchain for gcc >= 9.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3038
No functional change
Clang-10.0.0 poses as gcc-4.2:
$ clang++ -E -dM - </dev/null | grep GNUC
This means that Clang is using the workaround for the alignment bug of gcc-8
even though it does not have the bug (as far as I know).
This patch should speed up AVX2 and AVX512 compiles on Windows (when using Clang),
because it disables (for Clang) the gcc workaround we had introduced in this commit:
875183b310
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3050
No functional change.
In recent Macs, it is possible to use the Clang compiler provided by Apple
to compile Stockfish out of the box, and this is the method used by default
in our Makefile (the Makefile sets the macosx-version-min=10.14 flag to select
the right libc++ library for the Clang compiler with recent c++17 support).
But it is quite possible to compile and run Stockfish on older Macs! Below
we describe a method to install a recent GNU compiler on these Macs, to get
the c++17 support. We have tested the following procedure to install gcc10 on
machines running Mac OS 10.7, Mac OS 10.9 and Mac OS 10.13:
1) install XCode for your machine.
2) install Apple command-line developer tools for XCode, by typing the following
command in a Terminal:
```
sudo xcode-select --install
```
3) go to the Stockfish "src" directory, then try a default build and run Stockfish:
```
make clean
make build
make net
./stockfish
```
4) if step 3 worked, congrats! You have a compiler recent enough on your Mac
to compile Stockfish. If not, continue with step 5 to install GNU gcc10 :-)
5) install the MacPorts package manager (https://www.macports.org/install.php),
for instance using the fast method in the "macOS Package (.pkg) Installer"
section of the page.
6) use the "port" command to install the gcc10 package of MacPorts by typing the
following command:
```
sudo port install gcc10
```
With this step, MacPorts will install the gcc10 compiler under the name "g++-mp-10"
in the /opt/local/bin directory:
```
which g++-mp-10
/opt/local/bin/g++-mp-10 <--- answer
```
7) You can now go back to the "src" directory of Stockfish, and try to build
Stockfish by pointing at the right compiler:
```
make clean
make build COMP=gcc COMPCXX=/opt/local/bin/g++-mp-10
make net
./stockfish
```
8) Enjoy Stockfish on Macintosh!
See this pull request for further discussion:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3049
No functional change
Changes to deal with compilation (particularly profile-build) on macOS.
(1) The default toolchain has gcc masquerading as clang,
the previous Makefile was not picking up the required changes
to the different profiling tools.
(2) The previous Makefile test for gccisclang occurred before
a potential overwrite of CXX by COMPCXX
(3) llvm-profdata no longer runs as a command on macOS and
instead is invoked by ``xcrun llvm-profdata``
(4) Needs to support use of true gcc using e.g.
``make build ... COMPCXX=g++-10``
(5) enable profile-build in travis for macOS
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3043
No functional change
some GUIs do not show the error message when the engine terminates in the no-net case, as it is send to cerr.
Instead send it as an info string, which the GUI will more likely display.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3031
No functional change.
add new ARCH targets
x86-32-sse41-popcnt > x86 32-bit with sse41 and popcnt support
x86-32-sse2 > x86 32-bit with sse2 support
x86-32 > x86 32-bit generic (with mmx and sse support)
retire x86-32-old (use general-32)
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3022
No functional change.
The easiest way to use the NDK in conjunction with this Makefile (tested on linux-x86_64):
1. Download the latest NDK (r21d) from Google from https://developer.android.com/ndk/downloads
2. Place and unzip the NDK in $HOME/ndk folder
3. Export the path variable e.g., `export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/ndk/android-ndk-r21d/toolchains/llvm/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin`
4. cd to your Stockfish/src dir
5. Issue `make -j ARCH=armv8 COMP=ndk build` (use `ARCH=armv7` or `ARCH=armv7-neon` for older CPUs)
6. Optionally `make -j ARCH=armv8 COMP=ndk strip`
7. That's all. Enjoy!
Improves support from Raspberry Pi (incomplete?) and compiling on arm in general
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3015
fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/2860
fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/2641
Support is still fragile as we're missing CI on these targets. Nevertheless tested with:
```bash
# build crosses from ubuntu 20.04 on x86 to various arch/OS combos
# tested with suitable packages installed
# (build-essentials, mingw-w64, g++-arm-linux-gnueabihf, NDK (r21d) from google)
# cross to Android
export PATH=$HOME/ndk/android-ndk-r21d/toolchains/llvm/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin:$PATH
make clean && make -j build ARCH=armv7 COMP=ndk && make -j build ARCH=armv7 COMP=ndk strip
make clean && make -j build ARCH=armv7-neon COMP=ndk && make -j build ARCH=armv7-neon COMP=ndk strip
make clean && make -j build ARCH=armv8 COMP=ndk && make -j build ARCH=armv8 COMP=ndk strip
# cross to Raspberry Pi
make clean && make -j build ARCH=armv7 COMP=gcc COMPILER=arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++
make clean && make -j build ARCH=armv7-neon COMP=gcc COMPILER=arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++
# cross to Windows
make clean && make -j build ARCH=x86-64-modern COMP=mingw
```
No functional change
This patch fixes the byte order when reading 16- and 32-bit values from the network file on a big-endian machine.
Bytes are ordered in read_le() using unsigned arithmetic, which doesn't need tricks to determine the endianness of the machine. Unfortunately the compiler doesn't seem to be able to optimise the ordering operation, but reading in the weights is not a time-critical operation and the extra time it takes should not be noticeable.
Big endian systems are still untested with NNUE.
fixes#3007
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3009
No functional change.
Increases the use of NNUE evaluation in positions without captures/pawn moves,
by increasing the NNUEThreshold threshold with rule50_count.
This patch will force Stockfish to use NNUE eval more and more in materially
unbalanced positions, when it seems that the classical eval is struggling to
win and only manages to shuffle. This will ask the (slower) NNUE eval to
double-check the potential fortress branches of the search tree, but only
when necessary.
passed STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f36f1bf11a9b1a1dbf192d8
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) {-0.50,1.50}
Total: 51824 W: 5836 L: 5653 D: 40335
Ptnml(0-2): 264, 4356, 16512, 4493, 287
passed LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f37836111a9b1a1dbf1936d
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) {0.25,1.75}
Total: 29768 W: 1747 L: 1590 D: 26431
Ptnml(0-2): 33, 1347, 11977, 1484, 43
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3011
Bench: 4173967
