Chessmaster 4000 Turbo

I found a counterfeit CD of this awesome chess program and installed it on my old desktop computer using Windows Millennium Edition in 2004 and it worked perfectly. I only played it once or twice though. And then in 2011 out of boredom, I find myself playing occasional chess against Chess master but unfortunately my 2GB desktop had to say goodbye. So I upgraded to Windows XP that I found incompatible with CM4000. So I just downloaded chess apps that ONLY plays with you and doesn't teach you about the principles of play, etc. But I was PERSISTENT! I felt like I couldn't live without it. So I searched the web on how to run CM4000 on XP. Luckily, it didn't take long. I was able to run it on XP with very simple trick. You just click on the top right beside the tabs and slide the cursor to the tab you want to open so the error won't show up. I then installed SCID to convert mine and old masters' games to PGN file. Ah, I wanna relive the good old days.

I think almost any version of Chessmaster has some play value to it. Congrats on getting CM4000 running. (There's an abandonware site on the net that has a DOSBox version of CM4000 that can be run on modern PCs by just clicking on a bat file.) I haven't really used CM4000, since I have paid versions of CM9000 and CM 10th Edition.

 

I find it amazing that almost four years after end of support, a few percent of people are still running Windows XP on the internet. From a security standpoint, I wouldn't do it myself, but I guess that's your business. :)

I wish Ubisoft would sell the rights to Chessmaster to someone who will resume development.  It's a sin to let such a popular franchise die.

Nah, I don't use desktop computer anymore. The CPU died. I tried hard to resuscitate it but I failed and the power button fell inside the CPU. LOL! Never mind, the OS was fake anyway. Meaning, 98% cheaper. Regarding CM4000, yeah, there's are sites like vetusware.com where you can download zipped version of it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish the program because of my PC's timely death and repetition by me.

It's probably the best chess program in terms of its features, not its engine strength. But even CM4000's engine was strong enough. And the user can tune its play or "personality."

Eh, the vetusware download has to be crap. It's a 3.5 MB zipped file, while the original ISO file was over 500 MB.

 

I just tried out the DOSBox version of CM4000 on my modern, but still "old and slow" PC. DOSBox will slow down a program considerably, but considering that many of the DOS programs originally ran on 286, 386, 486 PCs, that's not bad at all.

 

CM4000 has a simplistic benchmark test where you play a game against the Chessmaster personality with a time control of 8-ply fixed depth. You play White and start off with 1. h4. (Obviously not a book move.) Then you wait to see how long it takes the engine to respond. In the "Help" section, it states that a 486 DX-66 will take 58 seconds, I think. With the default DOSBox settings on my PC, it took 53 seconds. (So not much faster than a 486 PC.) However, after I tweaked the DOSBox settings to the fastest possible settings (without getting into sound dropouts, etc.), I got a response time of 6 seconds. I don't know what hardware that number correlates to, but it's better than a 486 PC.

 

Edit- OK, based on some numbers I found, a 6-second response time would roughly correlate to a Pentium II 300 PC; Not too bad.

Er... I'm not an expert when it comes to computer specs. I do it by feel. The last PC I got was Pentium 4. The laughable 3 MB Chessmaster's play was strong, from my point of view. I could easily draw with Anderssen-Style though. Ironically. Thanks for the info.

I wasn't trying to say that the 3 MB download wasn't strong, just that I'm sure they stripped out all of the extra features like tutorials, opening training, opening books, games databases, etc. Probably the only thing that was in the download was the GUI, the engine, and the personality files.

Actually, the full version of CM4000 isn't all that bad; Of course, the newer CM versions are much better.

Okay, I see. No,it has everything in it. At first, I was skeptical but when I extracted it and checked the files, everything's there. Of course, if you run it on XP, some buttons like 'white/black to move' in the Setup A Position feature are missing. I'm a bit depressed because considered it my 'chess school' but unfortunately, I didn't graduate. 😁

I don't suppose you could put the zipped file up on Sendspace, could you? I'm not going to create a Vetusware account just to download one file, but I am interested in looking at the file closer. :)

 

Edit - Eh, nevermind. I figured out how to download it using a throwaway e-mail. :)

OK, it looks like the Vetusware version is missing a half dozen large DLL files (not sure what they do) and a lot of audio wav files (for tutorials, etc.). So you just won't get the audio on the tutorials.

I don't know about the genuine or legal copy but the one on vetusware is very similar to the fake one I acquired in 2004. It was just a tiny file among other softwares. Anyway, I stopped using background music and sound effects, though, because they are too loud on XP and the sfx don't work on it. I will try to get a new CPU this year if vetusware.com is still online. I miss Chessmaster badly.

The only difference between the one that I got in 2004 and the one from vetusware is that you have to install the former. There's a box where you see something like end credits in a movie. And it prompts you type Yes or No. Unlike the zipped version: you just extract it and copy the icon on your home screen.