Re: [computer-go] Using floating point sounds very strange to me

["chrilly" <chrilly@xxxxxxxx>]

>
>Perhaps the big difference is the maturity of Chess programs v.s that
>of Go
>programs. The literature on what has been tried and what has worked
>likely
>results in the top chess programs having more in common than the present
>top Go programs, so a few percent difference in speed shows more
>distinctly
>in the chess programs. Right now Go programs are using a very wide
>variety
>of algorithms and evaluation functions, and those details seem more
>important
>than speed right now.
>
Exactly. Chessprogramms are basically all the same. I do not know any
internal details of Shredder, but I sent recently a testgame Hydra-Shredder
to Stefan Meyer-Kahlen (Shredder-Programmer) with comments what went wrong
in this game for Shredder. Stefan confirmed that my diagnosis was perfectly
right. If everybody does the same, doing it a little bit better is very
important.

>
>Inefficient if what you think you need is all CPUs cranking full speed
>all the time.
>
It is in my understanding a relative simple parallel algorithm. But to make
it really efficient one would to have change the whole programm. Seems to be
in Go very difficult. The chess model is much simpler, because there is a
relative clear-cut seperation of search and evaluation. But it is even in
chess extremly difficult to keep a network of 32 (or even 72) CPUs busy and
do avoid unnecessary work at the same time.
I mention the number 32, because I am working currently on a new version of
Hydra for a 32-Processor Cluster.
>
>I do not follow your line of thought here, particularly the jump back
>to floating
>point considerations. I would like to understand what you are thinking
>...
Sorry, this was a rather baroque Austrian sentence. If you see pictures of
Vienna or Salzburg with baroque buildings. It is not only the buildings, our
way to say things is the same.
Short version: SlugGo shows, that speed is important in Go.

One can argue, that this is anyway known. But from my experience at the
Go-Olympiad 2003 it is known differnently than in chess. E.g. most programms
did not use the full time-control. The time control is with 1 hour for a
19x19 game rather fast. The argument seems to be. If the programms cant use
the time anyway, why sitting unnecessary around waiting for moves. Waiting
15 minutes for a move like it happens in chess is really a pain in the ass.
There were also some plans that I build together with Peter Woitke (GoAhead)
a new Go-Programm. One of the basic requirements of Peter was, that the
programm strength is monotonically increasing with hardware-speed. I did not
understand the requierement at all, because this is completly obvious in
chess. But it is not the case in the current GoAhead.

Chrilly


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