Have you got hardware with many cores to take advantage of up to 32?
6 will serve you just fine unless you turn in to a cyber chess fanatic and buy expensive rigs.
Chess Engines "cores"
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How many physical cores does your computer have? (One way to check: Run task manager and click the performance tab. How many bar charts do you see?)
Some related discussion here.
I have no idea what I have in my laptop, but basically, is there a difference in the product? My idea is to take finished games and compare my key moves with the machine in order to see where I either lost the advantage , or gained some. What I missed, and what I did well.
I'll take a look and get back to you. Thanks.
I don't know. Under performance, I see CPU, MEMORY, DISK0, DISK 1, BLUETOOTH, ETHERNET, WI-FI...
Good-KnightJoe wrote:
I have no idea what I have in my laptop, but basically, is there a difference in the product? My idea is to take finished games and compare my key moves with the machine in order to see where I either lost the advantage , or gained some. What I missed, and what I did well.
If you have a laptop, the odds of having more than 6 cores are slim. If you're just analyzing your own games for mistakes, the 6 core version will work just fine. 32 cores is for people who want to beat other computers.
Jan 14, 2014
0
#8
The pro version is for high-end hardware that most people do not have.
Since you have a laptop with 16 gb, chances are it is a quad-core i7 So you only need the standard version of the engine. Even with the newest i7 CPU that has 6 cores, you are still covered with the standard engine.
Jan 14, 2014
0
#9
Good-KnightJoe wrote:
I don't know. Under performance, I see CPU, MEMORY, DISK0, DISK 1, BLUETOOTH, ETHERNET, WI-FI...
The easiest way to find out is to just install the CPU-Z utility and run that. In the bottom right-hand corner it tells you the number of cores and threads.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
Bear in mind that some laptops will overheat if run on all cores, usually because they get dust buildup inside the unit. I use the CoreTemp utility to monitor laptop temps.
Sorry, I have 2 laptops. Both of them are i7. Anyway, thank you. All of you guys helped me to save 30 bucks...
I can help you save even more bucks by suggesting:
Arena 3.5 as GUI:
And Stockfish as Engine:
I don't know why people still pay for inferior chess engines when there are better ones available for free. BTW I don't think there will be much difference between an engine running on a dual core or quad core, unless we are speaking of a 256-CPU supercomputer.
And to add to IM Pfren's list, unless you have a dedicated laptop for chess alone, you might want to reserve 1 core for your OS and email client or browser anyway. Will keep the system at least responsive.
Jan 14, 2014
0
#14
If you don't know how many cores you have, you don't need the 32 core software.
Doggy_Style wrote:
If you don't know how many cores you have, you don't need the 32 core software.
Lol, but +28
Thank you all..
pfren wrote:
virtual cores should not be added to the computing pool, as the performance gets degraded.
In my experience, while they don't contribute nearly as much as real cores, it still squeezes out a little more nps than without them.
For example:
I have 4 real cores and setting this in Arena gets me to roundabout 5.1 knps
If I set it to the 8 cores, including the virtual ones I'm getting 6.8 knps
Or what exactly did you mean by that?
pfren wrote:
A laptop at 99% of the cases has no more than 4 physical cores, and virtual cores should not be added to the computing pool, as the performance gets degraded. Multiple cores are useful for running more than one engine in parallel. For running just one engine you will usually be fine with up to 4 cores. Arena and Stockfish are 100% free, and the devel version of Stockfish is currently the strongest engine available- commercial ones included.
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
disagrees with you. which rating list puts stockfish at the top? how many games were played to decide that?
pfren wrote:
Oecleus wrote:
pfren wrote:
A laptop at 99% of the cases has no more than 4 physical cores, and virtual cores should not be added to the computing pool, as the performance gets degraded. Multiple cores are useful for running more than one engine in parallel. For running just one engine you will usually be fine with up to 4 cores. Arena and Stockfish are 100% free, and the devel version of Stockfish is currently the strongest engine available- commercial ones included.
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
disagrees with you. which rating list puts stockfish at the top? how many games were played to decide that?
1. This is about Stockfish Don Dailey stable version, not recent devel ones (which are stronger).
2. 40/40 is not a serious time control, even for engines. You can ask mr. Thoresen if you doubt (although his site seems being temporarily down).
How are you sure the newer developer versions are stronger?
Also I'm not sure about Tcec and mr.thoresen since the site is down, he seems to be an authority figure. My only concerns are that there enough games to be conclusive, while the site I linked you has played many many games out from all sorts of engines and houdini is on top consistently across all tested time controls.
The newer developer-versions are stronger in comparison to the DD-Version.
Whenever they upload one that has important changes, they put it there with the results of the regression-tests.
Here's the site where you can get the development-versions alongside the programmers comments on what they have changed.
Just noticed there's a new one today with another good improvement.
Hi, I was wondering if anyone know the difference in "cores" when looking to buy a chess engine.
For example, ChessKing sells "ChessKing Deep 4" with 6 cores, but also offers "ChessKing Deep Pro" with 32 cores. The difference in price is about $30.00.
What would be the advantage of one over the other one? I don't know if this matters, but I own a good laptop with Windows 8.1, 16 Gig of Ram and 1T of hard drive.
Thank you for your input... :-)