It's so easy to run ChessBase on parallel's on the mac, that I'm not sure all the work you're suggesting is worth it. That's probably also how the CB programers feel. It works fine on my macs. It's a little extra cost, but ultimately insignificant compared to the cost of all the windows chess software out there.
Macintosh Chess Database
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Jan 22, 2012
0
#3
1. What about running CB under a Windows emulator in a MAC?
2. As far as chess databases go, ChessBase is the best. There is no question, no competition; it is simply a fact. The players are stronger, the games better, and the organization easier than that of any other chess database. chessisgood
I happen to own CB9 and like it myself, but as far as your "facts" go I don't think you know what you're talking about and in case I'm wrong let's see a citation or two (NOT wikipedia either) besides your word for it. How do you know the games and players are stronger & better in CB? Should we seriously believe CB has games unavailable in ALL other commercial DBs?
Jan 22, 2012
0
#5
I don't understand why they don't just make more programs cross-platform.
Jan 23, 2012
0
#6
DrRobertJr wrote:
It's so easy to run ChessBase on parallel's on the mac, that I'm not sure all the work you're suggesting is worth it. That's probably also how the CB programers feel. It works fine on my macs. It's a little extra cost, but ultimately insignificant compared to the cost of all the windows chess software out there.
True, you can run ChessBase through Parallels on the Mac. However, if you want to have a good chess engine running simultaneously, you will definitely need something a bit stronger than Parallels. It has enough trouble running simple programs.
The same is true with partitioning a Macintosh. The Windows version will simply not run fast enough to support a huge database and a chess engine to boot. Anyways, I think a lot of people are still wary about running Windows on their Mac.
chessisgood wrote:
Macintosh Chess Database:
As far as chess databases go, ChessBase is the best. There is no question, no competition; it is simply a fact. The players are stronger, the games better, and the organization easier than that of any other chess database.
However, it does not support Macintosh systems. This comes as a problem for many Mac users, since they do not have a Windows computer available. These people are then forced to use either online databases or other programs, which cannot even be compared to ChessBase.
This reasoning brings us to a conclusion. Someone needs to create a chess database for Macintosh. For a while, I considered this to be a hopeless task. All I could do was wait and see if ChessBase ever favoured us poor Apple users.
However, after browsing through the accounts of various chess.com members, I realized that a vast minority of us are programmers. This leads me to believe that if we work at it, the members of chess.com can create a Macintosh database equivalent to, if not stronger than, ChessBase.
Already, there is a great amount of information available to us. Firstly, because of the internet, millions of master games are already available to us. As time progresses, more and more games will be accessible.
Next, thanks to the multitude of programmers who use chess.com, it will be easy to create such a program. With only the support of a few members, we can create a database GUI in a matter of weeks.
Finally, no chess database is complete without an analysis engine. Fortunately, Stockfish, an incredibly strong open-source program, can help us in this regard. It is very easy to implement an engine into an interface.
Due to these factors, it seems probable that if we work hard, the members of chess.com will be able to create a database to rival even ChessBase, that will run on Macintosh, and possibly Windows or Linux as well.
If you wish to join the project, you are welcome to post in this forum. I will also be starting a group where contributors can work together on this in order to get the job done. The group will be created as soon as there is a reasonable amount of support.
Thanks for reading,
~Chessisgood
A couple of points:
It is very easy to argue that ChessBase is not the best. Lacking an equivilant of CQL found in CA there are querries that are trivial to do in CA that are impossible to do in CB. If the point of a chess database is to be more than a game browser, then the lack of a positional query language is a significant mark against CB.
Second, ChessBase released a Mac version a few years back, the sales didn't support the development effort.
Third, using Parrallels, VMWare or even Wine it is very easy to run chessbase, CA and the other windows only chess programs that are out there.
Fourth, if the lack of a chess query language equivilant doesn't bother you, and all you want is a game browser, then SCID is a usable (albiet ugly) option.
Fifth, your non-quoted comment about VMs not being able to support large databases is simply wrong. I have CB 11 and CA 10 on my MacBook Pro, I use the newest VMWare Fusion with Windows 7 and have multiple databases, with my master database housing roughly 6 million games. I have no problems doing anything I need to do. Now, I wouldn't want to pit my system against a dedicated native box in a match, but for querying games and doing basic analytical tasks it is more than sufficient.
Lastly, a well designed, well maintained, high quality chess database native to the mac would be great. But the level of work required to do that is quite high. Moreover, if you're going to start out a large software project asking for programers rather than system architects you're going to fail on the "well designed" and "well maintained," and "high quality" part.
I don't mean to discourage your efforts, by all means code away. But what problem are you actually solving for people? How will what you build be better than SCID or even CB on a VM?
I have seen absolutely no slowdown on engine perform running any I the deep engines. There may be slight GUI slowdown when running 3d graphics games but even that is small. If there is no GUI component I think there is no measurable slowdown. My Mac calculates 32 plys in 4 min. 24 plys almost instantly. Same as pc running windows only.
Jan 23, 2012
0
#9
A lot of this depends on the level of importance placed on the availability of engines, since there is still the potential gripe that the number of engines that can be integrated is limited. Houdini is Windoze only. Rybka only has an "experimental" port but I don't know the status of that.
There are quite a few very viable engines out there that run natively on the Mac, while not having access to some engines would be sad, being able to use every engine out there isn't really the point of a database. That there are several options for top-tier engines stronger than any human player is all that really matters, and that requirement is met.
Jan 23, 2012
0
#11
From the SCID standpoint, the main improvement is the graphics. I was steered away from that database from the very first screenshot. However, the workers there may be willing to help. I have contacted a few internet database providers and am awaiting their response.
As far as Parallels and other such programs, I realize that there is not a huge slowdown, but such things can be significant. If you want to check your opponent's openings five minutes before your next round starts, it would be much easier to just click on a database than to use a VM.
FInally, the other reason to create this is to offer competition to ChessBase. As much as people may advertise other databases, ChessBase seems to have nearly monopolized the market. At the highest levels, no one talks about SCID or other databases. ChessBase is the top database.
Jan 23, 2012
0
#12
Ok, I am planning to create some Photoshopped images of what I think this database might look like. However, before I can get started, I am going to need a name. Does anyone have a suggestion?
Is your goal to make a CB clone or to provide competition to CB? They are too different and actually incompatible goals. If you want to be better than CB, then you actually have to provide meaningful features that CB lacks.
As far as your speed comment -- you're simply wrong. The search speed and computation speed of CB running in VMWare Fusion at least is perfectly acceptable with no noticable performance gap off of running the same sorts of queries off of my son's Windows laptop. There is a difference, of course, but it is not perceptable.
Jan 23, 2012
0
#14
I do not want to make a CB clone. I am looking to create something better, which would offer more options. As far as speed, I still contest that though a ChessBase running in Mac under VMWare fusion may be as fast as ChessBase in Windows, it would not be as fast as a database native to the Mac OSX.
On a final note, since this is supposed to be better than ChessBase, the discussion about the speed of ChessBase on Macintosh systems is, in some ways, irrelevant. I think that we can create a database that has a better GUI and many more organizational features than that of ChessBase.
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
So let's forget a moment about the UI. What are the features you see as being essential? What are your nice-to-have features?
Jan 23, 2012
0
#16
New Features:
-I think we need an option to implement the analysis engine into a tree. This way, we could see not only the results in each opening, but the computer's view as well.
-I would like to see a stronger option for creating your own databases. This could include an option to import from several of the top chess sites. I would also like the option to publish games to an unofficial online compilation database.
-The filter option should perform well. On ChessBase, when you filter, it will think for a long time while you get to see a nice little box that counts the number of games found. I would like to see this go faster and present the most popular games first.
-There should be simple ways to combine/mix your various databases. I would like to see features such as "Add game to __________ Database."
-It would also be nice to have an option to go online and comment on games/openings/etc. This is an idea inspired by the chess.com database.
These are just a few of a multitude of features that I would like to see. If you have more, go ahead and post them. Please note that some of these features could currently be available in ChessBase. I do not own a copy (or a working PC), so I must go to the local chess center to test things.
Jan 23, 2012
0
#17
Kingpatzer wrote:
There are quite a few very viable engines out there that run natively on the Mac, while not having access to some engines would be sad, being able to use every engine out there isn't really the point of a database. That there are several options for top-tier engines stronger than any human player is all that really matters, and that requirement is met.
Actually being stronger than a human is not so important as in a database program one is typically using the engine to analyze, not as an opponent. So what would be important is that the strongest available engine be integrable.
mark100net wrote:
Kingpatzer wrote:
There are quite a few very viable engines out there that run natively on the Mac, while not having access to some engines would be sad, being able to use every engine out there isn't really the point of a database. That there are several options for top-tier engines stronger than any human player is all that really matters, and that requirement is met.
Actually being stronger than a human is not so important as in a database program one is typically using the engine to analyze, not as an opponent. So what would be important is that the strongest available engine be integrable.
If you can show me an actual case where the small ELO difference between stockfish and rybka will lead to forced losses because of poor analysis, I'll concede the point.
Feature thought: I would say the ability to use CQL or a s imilar language is really the difference between a database and a game browser.
Macintosh Chess Database:
As far as chess databases go, ChessBase is the best. There is no question, no competition; it is simply a fact. The players are stronger, the games better, and the organization easier than that of any other chess database.
However, it does not support Macintosh systems. This comes as a problem for many Mac users, since they do not have a Windows computer available. These people are then forced to use either online databases or other programs, which cannot even be compared to ChessBase.
This reasoning brings us to a conclusion. Someone needs to create a chess database for Macintosh. For a while, I considered this to be a hopeless task. All I could do was wait and see if ChessBase ever favoured us poor Apple users.
However, after browsing through the accounts of various chess.com members, I realized that a vast minority of us are programmers. This leads me to believe that if we work at it, the members of chess.com can create a Macintosh database equivalent to, if not stronger than, ChessBase.
Already, there is a great amount of information available to us. Firstly, because of the internet, millions of master games are already available to us. As time progresses, more and more games will be accessible.
Next, thanks to the multitude of programmers who use chess.com, it will be easy to create such a program. With only the support of a few members, we can create a database GUI in a matter of weeks.
Finally, no chess database is complete without an analysis engine. Fortunately, Stockfish, an incredibly strong open-source program, can help us in this regard. It is very easy to implement an engine into an interface.
Due to these factors, it seems probable that if we work hard, the members of chess.com will be able to create a database to rival even ChessBase, that will run on Macintosh, and possibly Windows or Linux as well.
If you wish to join the project, you are welcome to post in this forum. I will also be starting a group where contributors can work together on this in order to get the job done. The group will be created as soon as there is a reasonable amount of support.
Thanks for reading,
~Chessisgood