Jan 9, 2007

[New Version] v0.12b - Uci support, time management

Changes:
  • Time mangement added
  • UCI support added
  • Machine vs. Machine in winboard should now work
  • Added support for the 'force' command in winboard
  • Fixed a bug conerning en passant, perft values are now correct
  • Perft and Tests classes were added, these are best called in the new line mode
  • Calling Mediocre without argument now enters a simple line mode
  • Added a few parameters to Engine.search() to allow uci/winboard thinking, fixed depth and time management
  • Added setupStart() to Board, which sets up the initial position
And a big thanks to Yves Catineau for helping with the UCI support.

Note: The readme.txt was updated to properly describe installing Mediocre in WinBoard. There are also two different .bat-files now, one for winboard and one for uci.

mediocre_v0.12b

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow I will test it this evening. You are working very fast, this is very interesting to follow your blog.

Jonatan Pettersson said...

Thanks for the kind words.

Hopefully I will be able to keep the tempo up for some time. There are a number of things I want implemented before I can relax. :)

Anonymous said...

I have tried this new version. It works without any problem in Arena with the UCI protocol, good job. There is now a takeback feature which is very nice to test the program.

Moreover, I found this new version much stronger than before. It plays very smart move to defend, and it is already difficult for me to beat it in rapid chess (5 minutes). My Elo is normal chess is about 1800. Certainly 100 or 200 less in rapid chess.

Of course, I tested it against Comet B68, which is one of the weakest engine (but strong anyway) I have installed on my computer, and Mediocre cannot still win a game. But this is mainly due to the fact that for each move, the depth reached by Mediocre is always smaller than the one of Comet (5-6 sometime 7 against 8-10).

But you did a pretty good job until now!! Go ahead!

As I said, if you need specific help to test your program, don't hesitate to ask.

Jonatan Pettersson said...

I'm glad it is working better now. It was a lot of boring work to integrate uci support, nice to see it was worth it. :) Tell me if you run into any strange behavior.

As for being stronger I suppose it has to do with the time controls, and an overall more steady performance.

Mediocre still doesn't have a chance against pretty much any other engine. I ran a 150 game tournament with 1 minute time controls and Mediocre managed to win one game (which was actually very nice against King's Out).

The lack of hash tables limits the depth considerably compared to other engines, and the evaluation routine is still extremely basic.

I find the tests you have on your website very interesting. Perhaps if you could run the quicktest I could get a good feel for the soundness of Mediocre so far.

The problem with letting others run tests is it is hard to track down possible problems.

Anonymous said...

I will do the quick test this evening. I will let you know.