It is up to material (and pawn) table look up
code to know where the per-thread tables are,
so change API to reflect this.
Also some comment fixing while there
No functional change.
This patch replaces RKISS by a simpler and faster PRNG, xorshift64* proposed
by S. Vigna (2014). It is extremely simple, has a large enough period for
Stockfish's needs (2^64), requires no warming-up (allowing such code to be
removed), and offers slightly better randomness than MT19937.
Paper: http://xorshift.di.unimi.it/
Reference source code (public domain):
http://xorshift.di.unimi.it/xorshift64star.c
The patch also simplifies how init_magics() searches for magics:
- Old logic: seed the PRNG always with the same seed,
then use optimized bit rotations to tailor the RNG sequence per rank.
- New logic: seed the PRNG with an optimized seed per rank.
This has two advantages:
1. Less code and less computation to perform during magics search (not ROTL).
2. More choices for random sequence tuning. The old logic only let us choose
from 4096 bit rotation pairs. With the new one, we can look for the best seeds
among 2^64 values. Indeed, the set of seeds[][] provided in the patch reduces
the effort needed to find the magics:
64-bit SF:
Old logic -> 5,783,789 rand64() calls needed to find the magics
New logic -> 4,420,086 calls
32-bit SF:
Old logic -> 2,175,518 calls
New logic -> 1,895,955 calls
In the 64-bit case, init_magics() take 25 ms less to complete (Intel Core i5).
Finally, when playing with strength handicap, non-determinism is achieved
by setting the seed of the static RNG only once. Afterwards, there is no need
to skip output values.
The bench only changes because the Zobrist keys are now different (since they
are random numbers straight out of the PRNG).
The RNG seed has been carefully chosen so that the
resulting Zobrist keys are particularly well-behaved:
1. All triplets of XORed keys are unique, implying that it
would take at least 7 keys to find a 64-bit collision
(test suggested by ceebo)
2. All pairs of XORed keys are unique modulo 2^32
3. The cardinality of { (key1 ^ key2) >> 48 } is as close
as possible to the maximum (65536)
Point 2 aims at ensuring a good distribution among the bits
that determine an TT entry's cluster, likewise point 3
among the bits that form the TT entry's key16 inside a
cluster.
Details:
Bitset card(key1^key2)
------ ---------------
RKISS
key16 64894 = 99.020% of theoretical maximum
low18 180117 = 99.293%
low32 305362 = 99.997%
Xorshift64*, old seed
key16 64918 = 99.057%
low18 179994 = 99.225%
low32 305350 = 99.993%
Xorshift64*, new seed
key16 65027 = 99.223%
low18 181118 = 99.845%
low32 305371 = 100.000%
Bench: 9324905
Resolves#148
This is a regression from 428962a
We have to cast to char here, otherwise the compiler
interprets it as an integer, and writes a number.
No functional change
Resolves#122
Objects that are only accessible at file-scope should be put in the anonymous namespace.
This is what the C++ standard recommends, rather than using static, which is really C-style and results in static linkage.
Stockfish already does this throughout the code. So let's weed out the few exceptions,
because... they have no reason to be exceptional.
No functional change.
Resolves#84
It is more idiomatic, we didn't used it
in the past because Position::pretty(Move)
had a calling argument, but now we can.
As an added benefit, we avoid a lot of string
copies in the process because now we avoid
std::ostringstream ss.
No functional change.
Where they better belong.
Also, this removes '#include <string>' from types.h, which reduces the amount of code to compile (every
translation unit includes types.h).
No functional change.
The eval already returns zero in KK, KBK, KNK (see material.cpp). The difference is:
- we lose the "TB pruning" benefit of the draw rule (ie. search goes on even if eval is zero)
- we gain some speed by removing a useless test from the hot path
STC:
LLR: 0.05 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 128000 W: 21357 L: 21560 D: 85083
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 33023 W: 4613 L: 4509 D: 23901
bench 7461881
First, remove some dead code (function never called with a Move argument).
Then, remove printing of legal moves, which does not belong here. Let's keep commands orthogonal and minimal:
- the "d" command should display the board, nothing more, or less.
- "perft 1" will display the list of legal moves.
No functional change.
This apparentely silly tweak allows
to speed up the bench by almost 3%.
Not clear why, repeating with perft,
the speed up vanishes.
Suggested by Jonathan Calovski.
No functional change.
Big simplification of pawn move check.
Code has been tested with a brute force approach: for
every position reached during a bench search, the function
has been called for each combinations of Move(from, to)
and verified the result is the same of old code.
Actually this function is very critical becuase is the
one that ensures corrupted TT moves are discarded, so
to properly test it a simple bench is not enough.
Verified also speed is not changed.
No functional chnage.
Currently king has no material key associated because
it can never happen to find a legal position without
both kings, so there is no need to keep track of it.
The consequence is that a position with only the two
kings has material key set at zero and if the material
hash table is empty any entry will match and this is
wrong.
Normally bug is hidden becuase the checking for a draw
with pos.is_draw() is done earlier than evaluate() call,
so that we never check in gameplay the material key of a
position with two kings.
Nevertheless the bug is there and can be reproduced setting
at startup a position with only two kings and typing
'eval' from prompt.
The fix is very simple: add a random key also for the king.
Also fixed the condition in material.cpp to avoid asserting
when a 'just 2 kings' postion is evaluated.
No functional change.
