Engine Tournament in Arena

Hello!

I want to start an engine tournament on Arena to see which engine will win.  Should each match be 5 minutes long, or does it matter at all?

Of course it matters.  You want to give your engines enough time to do detailed calculations.  I suggest doing one game a day, giving the engines 24 hours of run time.

24 hours seems way to excessive since it probably takes engines 5 minutes to come up with the same move as it would if they were given 24 hours.

With Arena, I prefer to use repeating time controls for shorter games. CCRL tests engines at two time controls, 40/4 (40 moves in 4 minutes), and 40/40 (40 moves in 40 minutes). The time control repeats every 40 moves. So if you want to get in as many games as possible in a short time, then you could go with the 40/4 time control.

Use whatever time control you want.  Have a 5 0 match, or a 3 0 match or whatever.  Have several matches, each with different time controls.  Have some matches with increments.  5 2 or 3 1, for example.  Have "themed" matches... each game begins with the same opening.  Have round robin tournaments or swiss tournaments.

It makes no difference.  The choice is yours.

And yes, I agree with joesdaking.  One game a day is WAY excessive.  That wouldn't be my choice for a time control at all.