computer-go: FPGA vs. Clusters

["Magnus Persson" <magnus.persson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> FPGA in combination with running at a cluster will not speed your
> local tactical search up much. Cluster communication is pretty slow
> compared to the speed of the local tactical search.

Since this is local tactical search, there has to be several pending 
tactical searches. If every processor in the cluster get the 
responsibility for one tactical search at a time, then perhaps the 
search times are long enough to make communication times negligeble. 
It certainly has to be so in this case where the search has the speed 
of 20 nodes a second, unless the the search terminates at 1 ply 
because of the massive amount of knowledge used (that explains the 
speed).

By the way, I thought my program was slow which makes 20 down to .25 
nodes per second when it makes whole board evaluations - including 
all necessary reevaluations of  local tactical searches (tactical 
searches do 2000-5000 nodes per second). 

Magnus Persson
--
Magnus Persson
Department of psychology, Uppsala University
Box 1225, SE-751 42, Sweden
Tel 018-471 2141 (work), 018-460264 (home)
MAILTO: magnus.persson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
URL: http://www.docs.uu.se/~magnuspe