Allow for NUMA memory replication for NNUE weights. Bind threads to ensure execution on a specific NUMA node.
This patch introduces NUMA memory replication, currently only utilized for the NNUE weights. Along with it comes all machinery required to identify NUMA nodes and bind threads to specific processors/nodes. It also comes with small changes to Thread and ThreadPool to allow easier execution of custom functions on the designated thread. Old thread binding (WinProcGroup) machinery is removed because it's incompatible with this patch. Small changes to unrelated parts of the code were made to ensure correctness, like some classes being made unmovable, raw pointers replaced with unique_ptr. etc.
Windows 7 and Windows 10 is partially supported. Windows 11 is fully supported. Linux is fully supported, with explicit exclusion of Android. No additional dependencies.
-----------------
A new UCI option `NumaPolicy` is introduced. It can take the following values:
```
system - gathers NUMA node information from the system (lscpu or windows api), for each threads binds it to a single NUMA node
none - assumes there is 1 NUMA node, never binds threads
auto - this is the default value, depends on the number of set threads and NUMA nodes, will only enable binding on multinode systems and when the number of threads reaches a threshold (dependent on node size and count)
[[custom]] -
// ':'-separated numa nodes
// ','-separated cpu indices
// supports "first-last" range syntax for cpu indices,
for example '0-15,32-47:16-31,48-63'
```
Setting `NumaPolicy` forces recreation of the threads in the ThreadPool, which in turn forces the recreation of the TT.
The threads are distributed among NUMA nodes in a round-robin fashion based on fill percentage (i.e. it will strive to fill all NUMA nodes evenly). Threads are bound to NUMA nodes, not specific processors, because that's our only requirement and the OS can schedule them better.
Special care is made that maximum memory usage on systems that do not require memory replication stays as previously, that is, unnecessary copies are avoided.
On linux the process' processor affinity is respected. This means that if you for example use taskset to restrict Stockfish to a single NUMA node then the `system` and `auto` settings will only see a single NUMA node (more precisely, the processors included in the current affinity mask) and act accordingly.
-----------------
We can't ensure that a memory allocation takes place on a given NUMA node without using libnuma on linux, or using appropriate custom allocators on windows (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/memory/allocating-memory-from-a-numa-node), so to avoid complications the current implementation relies on first-touch policy. Due to this we also rely on the memory allocator to give us a new chunk of untouched memory from the system. This appears to work reliably on linux, but results may vary.
MacOS is not supported, because AFAIK it's not affected, and implementation would be problematic anyway.
Windows is supported since Windows 7 (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/processtopologyapi/nf-processtopologyapi-setthreadgroupaffinity). Until Windows 11/Server 2022 NUMA nodes are split such that they cannot span processor groups. This is because before Windows 11/Server 2022 it's not possible to set thread affinity spanning processor groups. The splitting is done manually in some cases (required after Windows 10 Build 20348). Since Windows 11/Server 2022 we can set affinites spanning processor group so this splitting is not done, so the behaviour is pretty much like on linux.
Linux is supported, **without** libnuma requirement. `lscpu` is expected.
-----------------
Passed 60+1 @ 256t 16000MB hash: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6654e443a86388d5e27db0d8
```
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,10.00>
Total: 278 W: 110 L: 29 D: 139
Ptnml(0-2): 0, 1, 56, 82, 0
```
Passed SMP STC: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6654fc74a86388d5e27db1cd
```
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 67152 W: 17354 L: 17177 D: 32621
Ptnml(0-2): 64, 7428, 18408, 7619, 57
```
Passed STC: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6654fb27a86388d5e27db15c
```
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 131648 W: 34155 L: 34045 D: 63448
Ptnml(0-2): 426, 13878, 37096, 14008, 416
```
fixes#5253
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5285
No functional change
This is another refactor which aims to decouple uci from stockfish. A new engine
class manages all engine related logic and uci is a "small" wrapper around it.
In the future we should also try to remove the need for the Position object in
the uci and replace the options with an actual options struct instead of using a
map. Also convert the std::string's in the Info structs a string_view.
closes#5147
No functional change
This addresses the issue where Stockfish may output non-proven checkmate
scores if the search is prematurely halted, either due to a time control
or node limit, before it explores other possibilities where the
checkmate score could have been delayed or refuted.
The fix also replaces staving off from proven mated scores in a
multithread environment making use of the threads instead of a negative
effect with multithreads (1t was better in proving mated in scores than
more threads).
Issue reported on mate tracker repo by and this PR is co-authored with
@robertnurnberg Special thanks to @AndyGrant for outlining that a fix is
eventually possible.
Passed Adj off SMP STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/65a125d779aa8af82b96c3eb
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 303256 W: 75823 L: 75892 D: 151541
Ptnml(0-2): 406, 35269, 80395, 35104, 454
Passed Adj off SMP LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/65a37add79aa8af82b96f0f7
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 56056 W: 13951 L: 13770 D: 28335
Ptnml(0-2): 11, 5910, 16002, 6097, 8
Passed all tests in matetrack without any better mate for opponent found in 1t and multithreads.
Fixed bugs in https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4976
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4990
Bench: 1308279
Co-Authored-By: Robert Nürnberg <28635489+robertnurnberg@users.noreply.github.com>
This aims to remove some of the annoying global structure which Stockfish has.
Overall there is no major elo regression to be expected.
Non regression SMP STC (paused, early version):
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/65983d7979aa8af82b9608f1
LLR: 0.23 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 76232 W: 19035 L: 19096 D: 38101
Ptnml(0-2): 92, 8735, 20515, 8690, 84
Non regression STC (early version):
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6595b3a479aa8af82b95da7f
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 185344 W: 47027 L: 46972 D: 91345
Ptnml(0-2): 571, 21285, 48943, 21264, 609
Non regression SMP STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/65a0715c79aa8af82b96b7e4
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 142936 W: 35761 L: 35662 D: 71513
Ptnml(0-2): 209, 16400, 38135, 16531, 193
These global structures/variables add hidden dependencies and allow data
to be mutable from where it shouldn't it be (i.e. options). They also
prevent Stockfish from internal selfplay, which would be a nice thing to
be able to do, i.e. instantiate two Stockfish instances and let them
play against each other. It will also allow us to make Stockfish a
library, which can be easier used on other platforms.
For consistency with the old search code, `thisThread` has been kept,
even though it is not strictly necessary anymore. This the first major
refactor of this kind (in recent time), and future changes are required,
to achieve the previously described goals. This includes cleaning up the
dependencies, transforming the network to be self contained and coming
up with a plan to deal with proper tablebase memory management (see
comments for more information on this).
The removal of these global structures has been discussed in parts with
Vondele and Sopel.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4968
No functional change
- remove the blank line between the declaration of the function and it's
comment, leads to better IDE support when hovering over a function to see it's
description
- remove the unnecessary duplication of the function name in the functions
description
- slightly refactored code for lsb, msb in bitboard.h There are still a few
things we can be improved later on, move the description of a function where
it was declared (instead of implemented) and add descriptions to functions
which are behind macros ifdefs
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4840
No functional change
This introduces clang-format to enforce a consistent code style for Stockfish.
Having a documented and consistent style across the code will make contributing easier
for new developers, and will make larger changes to the codebase easier to make.
To facilitate formatting, this PR includes a Makefile target (`make format`) to format the code,
this requires clang-format (version 17 currently) to be installed locally.
Installing clang-format is straightforward on most OS and distros
(e.g. with https://apt.llvm.org/, brew install clang-format, etc), as this is part of quite commonly
used suite of tools and compilers (llvm / clang).
Additionally, a CI action is present that will verify if the code requires formatting,
and comment on the PR as needed. Initially, correct formatting is not required, it will be
done by maintainers as part of the merge or in later commits, but obviously this is encouraged.
fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/3608
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4790
Co-Authored-By: Joost VandeVondele <Joost.VandeVondele@gmail.com>
This patch adds more debugging slots up to 32 per type and provide tools
to calculate standard deviation and Pearson's correlation coefficient.
However, due to slot being 0 at default, dbg_hit_on(c, b) has to be removed.
Initial idea from snicolet/Stockfish@d8ab604
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4354
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
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
Load feature transformer weights in bulk on little-endian machines.
This is in particular useful to test new nets with c-chess-cli,
see https://github.com/lucasart/c-chess-cli/issues/44
```
$ time ./stockfish.exe uci
Before : 0m0.914s
After : 0m0.483s
```
No functional change
A lot of optimizations happend since the NNUE was introduced
and since then some parts of the code were left unused. This
got to the point where asserts were have to be made just to
let people know that modifying something will not have any
effects or may even break everything due to the assumptions
being made. Removing these parts removes those inexisting
"false dependencies". Additionally:
* append_changed_indices now takes the king pos and stateinfo
explicitly, no more misleading pos parameter
* IndexList is removed in favor of a generic ValueList.
Feature transformer just instantiates the type it needs.
* The update cost and refresh requirement is deferred to the
feature set once again, but now doesn't go through the whole
FeatureSet machinery and just calls HalfKP directly.
* accumulator no longer has a singular dimension.
* The PS constants and the PieceSquareIndex array are made local
to the HalfKP feature set because they are specific to it and
DO differ for other feature sets.
* A few names are changed to more descriptive
Passed STC non-regression:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/608421dd95e7f1852abd2790
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <-2.50,0.50>
Total: 180008 W: 16186 L: 16258 D: 147564
Ptnml(0-2): 587, 12593, 63725, 12503, 596
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3441
No functional change
The codebase contains multiple functions returning by const-value.
This patch is a small cleanup making those function returns
by value instead, removing the const specifier.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3328
No functional change
Use TT memory functions to allocate memory for the NNUE weights. This
should provide a small speed-up on systems where large pages are not
automatically used, including Windows and some Linux distributions.
Further, since we now have a wrapper for std::aligned_alloc(), we can
simplify the TT memory management a bit:
- We no longer need to store separate pointers to the hash table and
its underlying memory allocation.
- We also get to merge the Linux-specific and default implementations
of aligned_ttmem_alloc().
Finally, we'll enable the VirtualAlloc code path with large page
support also for Win32.
STC: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f66595823a84a47b9036fba
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {-0.25,1.25}
Total: 14896 W: 1854 L: 1686 D: 11356
Ptnml(0-2): 65, 1224, 4742, 1312, 105
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/3081
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 ports the efficiently updatable neural network (NNUE) evaluation to Stockfish.
Both the NNUE and the classical evaluations are available, and can be used to
assign a value to a position that is 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 evalutions of millions of positions at moderate search depth.
The NNUE evaluation was first introduced in shogi, and ported to Stockfish afterward.
It can be evaluated efficiently on CPUs, and exploits the fact that only parts
of the neural network need to be updated after a typical chess move.
[The nodchip repository](https://github.com/nodchip/Stockfish) provides additional
tools to train and develop the NNUE networks.
This patch is the result of contributions of various authors, from various communities,
including: nodchip, ynasu87, yaneurao (initial port and NNUE authors), domschl, FireFather,
rqs, xXH4CKST3RXx, tttak, zz4032, joergoster, mstembera, nguyenpham, erbsenzaehler,
dorzechowski, and vondele.
This new evaluation needed various changes to fishtest and the corresponding infrastructure,
for which tomtor, ppigazzini, noobpwnftw, daylen, and vondele are gratefully acknowledged.
The first networks have been provided by gekkehenker and sergiovieri, with the latter
net (nn-97f742aaefcd.nnue) being the current default.
The evaluation function can be selected at run time with the `Use NNUE` (true/false) UCI option,
provided the `EvalFile` option points the the network file (depending on the GUI, with full path).
The performance of the NNUE evaluation relative to the classical evaluation depends somewhat on
the hardware, and is expected to improve quickly, but is currently on > 80 Elo on fishtest:
60000 @ 10+0.1 th 1
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f28fe6ea5abc164f05e4c4c
ELO: 92.77 +-2.1 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 60000 W: 24193 L: 8543 D: 27264
Ptnml(0-2): 609, 3850, 9708, 10948, 4885
40000 @ 20+0.2 th 8
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f290229a5abc164f05e4c58
ELO: 89.47 +-2.0 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 40000 W: 12756 L: 2677 D: 24567
Ptnml(0-2): 74, 1583, 8550, 7776, 2017
At the same time, the impact on the classical evaluation remains minimal, causing no significant
regression:
sprt @ 10+0.1 th 1
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f2906a2a5abc164f05e4c5b
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {-6.00,-4.00}
Total: 34936 W: 6502 L: 6825 D: 21609
Ptnml(0-2): 571, 4082, 8434, 3861, 520
sprt @ 60+0.6 th 1
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5f2906cfa5abc164f05e4c5d
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) {-6.00,-4.00}
Total: 10088 W: 1232 L: 1265 D: 7591
Ptnml(0-2): 49, 914, 3170, 843, 68
The needed networks can be found at https://tests.stockfishchess.org/nns
It is recommended to use the default one as indicated by the `EvalFile` UCI option.
Guidelines for testing new nets can be found at
https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki/Creating-my-first-test#nnue-net-tests
Integration has been discussed in various issues:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/2823https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/2728
The integration branch will be closed after the merge:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2825https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/tree/nnue-player-wip
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2912
This will be an exciting time for computer chess, looking forward to seeing the evolution of
this approach.
Bench: 4746616
for users that set the needed privilige "Lock Pages in Memory"
large pages will be automatically enabled (see Readme.md).
This expert setting might improve speed, 5% - 30%, depending
on the hardware, the number of threads and hash size. More for
large hashes, large number of threads and NUMA. If the operating
system can not allocate large pages (easier after a reboot), default
allocation is used automatically. The engine log provides details.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2656
fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/2619
No functional change
There is an ambiguity between global and std clamp implementations when compiling in c++17,
and on certain toolchains that are not strictly conforming to c++11.
This is solved by putting our clamp implementation in a namespace.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2572
No functional change.
Align the TT allocation by 2M to make it huge page friendly and advise the
kernel to use huge pages.
Benchmarks on my i7-8700K (6C/12T) box: (3 runs per bench per config)
vanilla (nps) hugepages (nps) avg
==================================================================================
bench | 3012490 3024364 3036331 3071052 3067544 3071052 +1.5%
bench 16 12 20 | 19237932 19050166 19085315 19266346 19207025 19548758 +1.1%
bench 16384 12 20 | 18182313 18371581 18336838 19381275 19738012 19620225 +7.0%
On my box, huge pages have a significant perf impact when using a big
hash size. They also speed up TT initialization big time:
vanilla (s) huge pages (s) speed-up
=======================================================================
time stockfish bench 16384 1 1 | 5.37 1.48 3.6x
In practice, huge pages with auto-defrag may always be enabled in the
system, in which case this patch has no effect. This
depends on the values in /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
and /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2463
No functional change
This patch shows a description of the compiler used to compile Stockfish,
when starting from the console.
Usage:
```
./stockfish
compiler
```
Example of output:
```
Stockfish 120120 64 POPCNT by T. Romstad, M. Costalba, J. Kiiski, G. Linscott
Compiled by clang++ 9.0.0 on Apple
__VERSION__ macro expands to: 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 9.0.0 (clang-900.0.38)
```
No functional change
