I am wondering whether to hold out for a later release or to get what is
available now.

In particular, I am looking for a chess engine that is both tactical and
agressive, put still plays positionally. I am not a high ranked player by any
means, so the real benefit I am looking for is with analysis. I have rybka,
but find that I can't use it reliably as an analysis engine within the Fritz
10 UI as the multiprocessor version causes ChessEngine10.exe to go
unresponsive from time to time (using the uniprocessor version seems to be
alright).

So, I note that Deep Shredder is due and I like the idea of shredderbases for
quick endgame analysis (it is fun to play engine matches at PlayChess as well,
so perhaps this would help). I note that Fritz 11 is due in a month or so,
but no word of the Deep version (awaiting a GM challenge for publicity again?).
I can't tell if the advantages of the upcoming Fritz 11 UI might be worth the
wait. Of course, there are existing deep versions of Hiarcs and Junior as
well. I have the single proc version of Junior 8 (or 9, I forget which) and
always liked the analysis, but I prefer to utilize my quad core for better
analysis and engine matches (and I am probably a bit crazy).

So, thoughts? Should I wait for the Deep version of Junior, Fritz or Hiarcs
to appear in the Fritz 11 UI or should I jump in and get Deep Shredder 11 (or
wait for Deep Shredder 12)? I am close to needing a new subscription for
Playchess.com anyway, so I am due for a purchase.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
-- Henry Kissinger

Hiarcs is the one id go with it has a strong middle game and good all
around game..

If you play computer vs computer keep your won / loss / draw record
as white and black and at what time control and vs what computer
programs...

If i ever get a real computer that is the chess program id get..

I think you need a real strong computer for the end game stuff that
Shredder has ??

On Oct 18, 3:29 pm, "Thomas T. Veldhouse" wrote:
I am wondering whether to hold out for a later release or to get what is
available now.

In particular, I am looking for a chess engine that is both tactical and
agressive, put still plays positionally. I am not a high ranked player by any
means, so the real benefit I am looking for is with analysis. I have rybka,
but find that I can't use it reliably as an analysis engine within the Fritz
10 UI as the multiprocessor version causes ChessEngine10.exe to go
unresponsive from time to time (using the uniprocessor version seems to be
alright).

It is to some extent a matter of personal taste. I quite like the type
of analysis and game play by Shredder and HIARCS - they are less
materialistic than Fritz and harder to trick although on paper at
least weaker than Rybka.

My personal favourite is Shredder because of the benefit of compact
high speed Shredderbases in the endgame Provided that you have at
least 500MB of ram to spare its 345 piece endgames are much faster
than ordinary TBs, and you can always just load 34 piece endgames 2MB
needed even in a memory constrained PC.

There might be a marginal advantage in hanging on to see if
ChessEngine11.exe has some killer new feature worth buying into if it
is nearly released. Priced of competitive products sometimes drop in
special offers (at least in the UK - back page offers for Chess
subscribers).

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Oct 20, 11:20 pm, (SAT W-7) wrote:
Hiarcs is the one id go with it has a strong middle game and good all
around game..

If you play computer vs computer keep your won / loss / draw record
as white and black and at what time control and vs what computer
programs...

If i ever get a real computer that is the chess program id get..

As oppposed to a virtual one? Most of the modern engines are strong
enough now that unless you are GM strength they will give you a
perfectly good game on any GHz class Pentium machine with 500MB ram.
And they would probably trounce most club players on a puny old P1
machine.

I think you need a real strong computer for the end game stuff that
Shredder has ??

Compared to classical Nalimov TBs the requirements for Shredderbases
are very modest. The 34 set take a mere 2MB of extra ram and are
almost always worth having loaded. The 345 set needs ~200MB and as
such is only worth using in a memory rich PC (thrashing virtual paged
memory undoes the advantage).

I wish they would offer a 3456 set (excluding 5+1) of Shredderbases as
an option. I'd be prepared to pay the cost of the disk space saved to
have it! My PC is resource rich but 6 men Nalimov TBs are a bit of a
stress test. I have a hunch that the total amount of ram needed for
this would require a 64bit OS (but that is an option).

Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:
On Oct 20, 11:20 pm, (SAT W-7) wrote:
Hiarcs is the one id go with it has a strong middle game and good all
around game..

If you play computer vs computer keep your won / loss / draw record
as white and black and at what time control and vs what computer
programs...

If i ever get a real computer that is the chess program id get..

As oppposed to a virtual one? Most of the modern engines are strong
enough now that unless you are GM strength they will give you a
perfectly good game on any GHz class Pentium machine with 500MB ram.
And they would probably trounce most club players on a puny old P1
machine.

I think you need a real strong computer for the end game stuff that
Shredder has ??

Compared to classical Nalimov TBs the requirements for Shredderbases
are very modest. The 34 set take a mere 2MB of extra ram and are
almost always worth having loaded. The 345 set needs ~200MB and as
such is only worth using in a memory rich PC (thrashing virtual paged
memory undoes the advantage).

I wish they would offer a 3456 set (excluding 5+1) of Shredderbases as
an option. I'd be prepared to pay the cost of the disk space saved to
have it! My PC is resource rich but 6 men Nalimov TBs are a bit of a
stress test. I have a hunch that the total amount of ram needed for
this would require a 64bit OS (but that is an option).


I run a Q6600 with 4GB DDR2-800 (4-4-4-12) under Windows Vista Ultimate (x64).
I certainly can utilitze the shredderbases.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
-- Henry Kissinger

Which one did you get ? Any of them would be nice ...

I have a excalibur computer called IVAN and it is in the I700 ELO range
and it has lost to FRITZ as black and white ....Ivan's end game is weak
but since i am not good enough to know about it's opening or middle game
those mite be weak too...
But i still have fun playing it myself or vs other computers ...

In one game vs fritz , the end game it had a rook protecting a lowly
pawn when his King was under attack , i kept telling it to move the rook
to try and help his King..ha ha ha...By the time it started to move it ,
it was too late....

SAT W-7 wrote:
Which one did you get ? Any of them would be nice ...


I haven't purchased anything yet. Shredder 11 is due out in a week or so and
Fritz 11 isn't due until a month after that and I am sure they will wait on
the "Deep" version until they can find a GM to publically play it for price
money before they actually release it.

I will either buy the deep version of Shredder 11 or wait for the one of
Shredder, Junior or Hiarcs for the Fritz 11 UI.

BTW ... does anybody know if the the UI in the deep version of the Fritz
interface is capable of using multiple cores itself? I ask this for the sole
reason that I still can't figure out why Rybka continues to freeze up while
analyzing my games from time to time (2.3.2a MP x64). I run it under the
Fritz 10 GUI as a UCI engine at default settings [messing with the settings
make the problem FAR worse]. Computer is 100% stable other than this
program/engine combination.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
-- Henry Kissinger

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:46:53 -0500, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
wrote:

SAT W-7 wrote:
Which one did you get ? Any of them would be nice ...


I haven't purchased anything yet. Shredder 11 is due out in a week or so and
Fritz 11 isn't due until a month after that and I am sure they will wait on
the "Deep" version until they can find a GM to publically play it for price
money before they actually release it.

I will either buy the deep version of Shredder 11 or wait for the one of
Shredder, Junior or Hiarcs for the Fritz 11 UI.

BTW ... does anybody know if the the UI in the deep version of the Fritz
interface is capable of using multiple cores itself? I ask this for the sole
reason that I still can't figure out why Rybka continues to freeze up while
analyzing my games from time to time (2.3.2a MP x64). I run it under the
Fritz 10 GUI as a UCI engine at default settings [messing with the settings
make the problem FAR worse]. Computer is 100% stable other than this
program/engine combination.

The Deep Fritz GUI should be able to handle 64 bit multi-processor UCI
engines when run under a 64 bit version of Windows.

Have you tried posting your question in the Rybka forum? It's a
fairly active forum, and there are experienced testers with big
hardware who post there.

Tony

Tony M wrote:

The Deep Fritz GUI should be able to handle 64 bit multi-processor UCI
engines when run under a 64 bit version of Windows.


That didn't really answer whether the Deep Fritz UI is different from the
Fritz UI though :-) I suspect not, but if so, perhaps that might be what is
causing the issue on my box.

Have you tried posting your question in the Rybka forum? It's a
fairly active forum, and there are experienced testers with big
hardware who post there.


No, in fact, I have not. Perhaps I should give it a try.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
-- Henry Kissinger

Down the road when you get it let us know how you like it ....