Draw!

An anonymous reader writes "Heise (publisher of the famous german computer magazine c't) started a most unusual CPU benchmark, today. A dual P4 Xeon 2400 and a dual AthlonMP 2000+ have to prove their abilities to ... play chess! The opponents are running two of the best chess AIs (Previews of Deep Fritz 7 and Shredder 6), so there are four different configurations. With each configuration about 55 matches (~24h) are played. As yet AMD/Fritz is leading, but the benchmark has just started. You can follow the duell online [Sorry, site is in german, but the graphics of the java-applet should be multi-lingual]. What's next? Who wouldn't like to see a Linux/Windows mine sweeper death match!"

Comments

NOOOOO! FIRST!

[Str8Dog]

please please pleaase

Eh?

[SkyLeach]

I'm not asking for any other reason than I really want to know:

What does this prove about performance?

Re:Eh?

[Gregg Alan]

I haven't read the article but one guess would be that if each machine had a specific and equal time limit in which to decide on its next move, the machine with better performance would be able to think more about the next move in the given time period and thus make better choices about which piece to move next.

Re:Eh?

[pkinetics]

Ability to compute possibilities. Based on both AIs, if one CPU does better than the other, it gives an idea of its ability to run calculations correctly. The ideal situation is that they tie based on the same AI. With different AI's the results should mirror each other, ie AMD with Fritz wins should equal Intel with Fritz wins, etc. That would indicate equal computation capabilities. If one AI dominates, well then that's just the AI.

Re:Eh?

[seann]

Well, with that deep blue computer beating a human, what does that prove?
faster computing power I guess?

It's all relitive to italian susage.

Re:Eh?

[kervel]

not true. since computer chess is about searching trees, the fastest computer is able to search deeper in the tree and get a more accurate picture of the best move.
if you want more info about how chess computers
(and AI in general) work:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programmin g/featu res/chess1/
http://oellermann.com/cftchess/notes/ shortcuts.htm l

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously cant understand how you people can sit there and say "how is this a benchmark??"

Are you kidding me???

If you cant see how this is a reasonable benchmark at all go back to grade school.

The simple fact is that the more grunt a computer has, the further a computer can see into the "future" in order to pick the best move. Personally, i think its a brilliant benchmark, and I would also suggest that it can be taken for granted that he'll be running all combinations of chess engine and cpu otherwise, it would all be pointless.

Re:Eh?

[kyosan]

Yeah, but are the 2 AI algorithms the same? If they aren't then they will also affect the outcome. One algorithm might make better moves than the other. In which case the comparison of the 2 processors wouldn't be fair because there is an additional variable.

Re:Eh?

[kyosan]

Also one algorithm might be written more efficiently and take less processor time.

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about FP ops...

Re:Eh?

[kyosan]

Nevermind; I just found out that they will be using both AI algorithms on both processors.

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It proves that Germany was responsible for the atrocities of World War II, including the deaths of over 6 million jews. NEVER trust or support anything from Germany or you will have blood on your hands. Die Germany!

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding, and I'll bet 10$ he's one of the people who believe q3 is a great cpu buster benchmark.

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and it only took you three posts to figure out what everybody else already knew!

Well done, kyosan!

...you fucking loser.

Re:Eh?

[Hellkitten]

So where are you from?

I dare you to mention one country that hasn't killed innocents. He who is without sin, etc etc

Yeah what they did was horrible, but that doesn't mean they'd do it again, there are different people in power now.

Re:Eh?

[kervel]

there is no more research on the algorythms itself going on (maybe the one is more efficient than the other, but that would make a big difference i think), i heard. however, both have a heuristic.
if you want to search two possible moves, you first calculate their heuristic. the one with the highest heuristic you calculate first.

so the heuristic is a rough estimate of the best move thats not always right. and its very difficult to find a good heuristic for chess. the two programs probably have a different heuristic.

also, both programs probably have a database with known bad/good moves (esp openings) that may differ

Re:Eh?

[Sobrique]

I dare you to mention one country that hasn't killed innocents. He who is without sin, etc etc
Vatican City.
Can I have some smartarse points now?

Re:Eh?

[Hellkitten]

Can I have some smartarse points now?

Probably

But maybe we could blame them for everyone that's died in wars over Christianity

Re:Eh?

[lightcycler]

Presumably they are trying to dispute the "Clock speed is the only measure of computer performance worth quoting" claim that Intel keep bashing on about.

If AMD at low clock frequency plays chess faster than pentium at high clock frequency, that would be interesting. However, both are beaten by the human brain with a 10Hz clock frequency.

Re:Eh?

[eclectus]

>>I dare you to mention one country that hasn't killed innocents. He who is without sin, etc etc

>Vatican City.

Have you ever heard of anything called the inquisition? Oh, that's right, all the people they authorized to be killed were guilty of not sharing the same religeon.....

Re:Eh?

[tomhudson]

Pope John Paul I

Autopsy not done, as was required by law, etc...

Suspicious death ...

Fritz is beating Shredder for now

[Anonymous Coward]

Fritz on AMD is beating Shredder on Intel for now. What does this tell us about the quality of the programs and CPUs? Precisely nothing.

Re:Fritz is beating Shredder for now

[mabinogi]

No, Fritz on AMD is beating Fritz on Intel, Shredder on AMD and Shredder on Intel.

There are four configurations.

So it would at least indicate that either AMD and Fritz are both generaly faster, or that Fritz contains code that runs faster on AMD (Whether by design or accident)

Re:Fritz is beating Shredder for now

[mabinogi]

hmm, or at least that's what the summary implied...

On looking at the site (and not being able to read German), I'm not entirely sure what they're trying to prove....if anything....

Time is limited

[nniillss]

For each game, both opponents have 10 minutes in total plus 2 seconds per move. Everything else being equal (or symmetric, with all combinations of programs being used) it is not too far fetched to assume that the faster machine wins on average

Re:Time is limited

[[TWD]insomnia]

The system who is going to have the advantage is the one with the best system optimization. If there are heavy SSE2 optimizations, chances that the Dual Xeon is going to win. If it has heavy pure FPU operations, then the Athlon is going to win. It's that simple. It's no better than any conventional benchmark

Re:Time is limited

[SirSlud]

better shmetter. the coolness factor (which doesnt seem that popular around slashdot in these sombre times) is off the chizz-arts!

Re:Time is limited

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not exactly sure of the implementation of the program. But I think most of these AI algorithm use very little of floating point or SSE, if any at all. They are mostly contains of integer operations.

Re:Time is limited

[tomstdenis]

That's why both machines are using both AI's.

And if I see 19 of 20 seconds from /. again I'm going to fuckin cry. Seriously slashdot crew, get a fucking clue. Not all posts require a full 20 seconds. Maybe because Taco boy uses a dialing wand and can only type 20 words a day... but for the rest of us... hey this seems like more than 20 seconds.

Tom

Re:Time is limited

[halftrack]

Machine means all hardware. In a chess game a machine who can't pull as many moves from RAM as it can process would have a disadvantage.

Re:Time is limited

[Anonymous Coward]

here here.

I was going to reply with a "here here" but, well, you know what happened...

Re:Time is limited

[Anonymous Coward]

But that begs the question: have both programs been equally optimised for both platforms?

Re:Time is limited

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to reply with a "here here" but, well, you know what happened...

Yes, you demonstrated ignorance. The phrase is "Hear hear."

Re:Time is limited

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use mozilla and stop crying, it dosen't clear your textboxes when you hit back.

Re:Time is limited

[AntiNorm]

Everything else being equal (or symmetric, with all combinations of programs being used) it is not too far fetched to assume that the faster machine wins on average

Or more accurately, the algorithm with the better implementation.

Re:Time is limited

[Mizery De Aria]

Not necessarily does the faster computer win.
It depends on the A.I. algorithm. Take for example computer A playing computer B. Computer A is faster than Computer B.
In 2 seconds computer A compiles 4 good moves.
In 2 seconds computer B compiles 3 good moves.
If the 4th good move is used rather than the ones that computer B also generated, and it outcomes to make computer A lose, does that mean computer B is faster?

Re:Time is limited

[Buck2]

Yeah you DESERVE A -1!

You're the same as a crap flooder with your humorous followups.

I'm glad the moderators are smoking crack again, it's always nice to know things haven't changed much from day to day.

Re:Time is limited

[nelsonal]

I believe that both computers are playing with both algorithms.

or...

[[amorphis]]

How about Core Wars?

Re:or...

[Anonymous Coward]

Core Wars doesn't really work like that... nor is it a very intensive benchmark.

Ooooh! Ooooh! Me! Me! Me!

[Burgundy Advocate]

Who wouldn't like to see a Linux/Windows mine sweeper death match!

Wow. It's such a simple question, but your answer immediately determines if you're a lifeless, antisocial dork or not!

again

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again the Athlon outperforms Intel processors on every benchmark and standard, and yet they are frowned upon by the world. Maybe this new publicity will boost them to a higher share of the market.

Re:again

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because the fuckers keep breaking! I have had the same box back for new AMD cpus 4 times now (changed the box over the intel and had no problems ever since)

Re:again

[Anonymous Coward]

What a well formed Troll. Absolutely nothing has been proven yet but you succesfully towed the slashdot line.

karma prostitution

[rice_burners_suck]

I AM A KARMA WHORE.

Re:karma prostitution

[suffocate]

SO IS YOUR MOTHER

Re:karma prostitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Blend one part each: Bailey's, Kahlua, vanilla ice cream. Drink responsibly

apparently you're a homosexual as well.

Re:karma prostitution

[Anonymous Coward]

So if his sig was mix one part Burbon and 6 parts beer, would that make him straight enough for you?

Better watch out...

[mansa]

Is overclocking considered cheating? I hope the AMD doesn't get hot "under the collar"!

Re:Better watch out...

[laurentr]

i doubt AMD cares at all about overclocking because once you overclock you void your warantee. OTOH, their target audience is probably overclockers, hence why they make their chips so easy to overclock (for those technologically inclined).

AMD/Fritz?

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like they are on opposite teams to me.

Pretty imprecise if you ask me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead isn't it better to let the program analyze some given position and compare the search rates in nodes/sec?

Re:Pretty imprecise if you ask me.

[Anonymous Coward]

That might be better...if that's what you're interested in. I think this is much more fun. Now the question is not so much which computer is faster but which computer is smarter :)

explanation?

[gripdamage]

Hey everybody complaining about this not being a benchmark... presumably they are going to compare performance such as "AMD Fritz vs. Intel Shredder" against "Intel Fritz vs. AMD Shredder" when the games are all over. Unless the first move for instance contains some random factor the games should be exactly the same, no matter which processor is running the program. So they'll add up how long it takes for each processor to decide to make the same moves. Maybe?

Re:explanation?

[gripdamage]

Okay so the games are different. Maybe they will seed the random generator on each processor with the same starting value.

Re:explanation?

[HowlinMad]

thats and they are going to compare all four instances

AMD/Fritz vs Intel/Shredder
AMD/Fritz vs INtel/Fritz
AMD/Shredder vs Intel/Shredder
AMD/Shredder vd Intel/Fritz

If one CPU hapeens to be better in each of the four instances, you could conlude that is it a better CPU. I do not think time is relevenat, because the processing time will depend on the board staus which will be different in every game. Some moves are hard to compute.

Re:explanation?

[gripdamage]

Yes I'm totally wrong. I thought they would compare each processors speed at playing the same game. This could be achieved by making sure the random number generator always returns the same values (either manipulating or replacing the random number generator so it isn't random). I'm wrong.

Re:explanation?

[tomstdenis]

Wrong. Get a clue. Each cpu gets 10 mins per GAME and 2 seconds per move.

The idea is that the faster cpu will beable to try out more moves before actually comitting to a move. More studying presumably means better chess.

Tom

Re:explanation?

[gripdamage]

Yes I was wrong, but I think my idea would be a better measure of performance: comparing how long it takes for each computer to calculate the same moves. Their way tests the correctness of the algorithms as well: if the programs work correctly more computations will result in better chess. On the other hand it seems possible that like a person, the programs last guess may not always be it's best guess.

Re:explanation?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, these are REAL chess programs, so they have 1:

an opening book that contains millions of positions, which varies the games right off the back
2: Learning features that help prevent the engine from repeating bad openings.
3: Simple randomization of moves of equal value, so that it can avoid repeating the same move in the same position.
4: This is biggest factor aside from the opening books, the hash tables will not neccessaryly have the same values in them, so they will not return the same value every time.

Re:explanation?

[tshak]

There is a reason that IBM's Deep Blue was not a P3 1Ghz - it needed tons of CPU power to compete with Kasparov. In theory, with the same chess engines, the faster computer will win the game each time. That is the point of these tests.

Also, considering the Athlon is rated at 2000, the P4 should win each time. It would be also be more beneficial to ignore said "ratings", and look at the budget. If they spent $5 building the P4, and $3K building the Athlon, then it's an unfair comparison because they weren't equal budgets. Unless, however practically useless, you want to see who has the fastest CPU regardless of price.

Re:explanation?

[DavidRavenMoon]

There is a reason that IBM's Deep Blue was not a P3 1Ghz - it needed tons of CPU power to compete with Kasparov.

I believe the original Deep Blue used PowerPC 604e CPUs. The newer version is a 32-node RS/6000.

But there is more to Deep Blue than CPU power.

How Deep Blue Works

"Deep Blue is not only the finest chess-playing computer in the world, it is also the fastest. This makes perfect sense, because history has proven that the fastest computers conduct the most extensive searches into possible positions. More searches gives the computer a wider array of moves to choose from and therefore a greater chance of choosing the optimum move."

"Deep Blue uses 'live' software that can actually generate up to 200,000,000 positions per second when searching for the optimum move. The software begins this process by taking a strategic look at the board. It then computes everything it knows about the current position, integrates the chess information pre-programmed by the development team, and then generates a multitude of new possible arrangements. From these, it then chooses its best possible next move."

"The software inside of Deep Blue is one all-inclusive program written in C, running under the AIX operating system. Deep Blue utilizes the IBM SP Parallel System called MPI. 'It's a message-passing system,' says Hoane. 'So the search is just all control logic. You're passing control messages back and forth that say, well, what am I doing? Did you finish this? OK, here's your next job. That kind of thing at the SP level.'"

"The latest iteration of the Deep Blue computer is a 32-node IBM RS/6000 SP high-performance computer, which utilizes the new Power Two Super Chip processors (P2SC). Each node of the SP employs a single microchannel card containing 8 dedicated VLSI chess processors, for a total of 256 processors working in tandem. The net result is a scalable, highly parallel system capable of calculating 60 billion moves within three minutes, which is the time allotted to each player's move in classical chess."

Re:explanation?

[c00lant]

...and AMD is winning... so maybe money is not everything in performance?

Re:explanation?

[scosol]

> Unless the first move for instance contains some random factor the games should be exactly the same, no matter which processor is running the program.

Eh?

While I'm not certain- in the case of a "no certain best move" I believe both programs will choose amongst the top moves randomly.

IE: There's no guarantee at all that the games will be the same every time.

Re:explanation?

[ken_mcneil]

Traditionally, chess programs have a database of lines of play in the early game (an "opening book"). Chess programmers carefully craft this database with a percentage attached to each move at each possible point in the opening. Therefore, for the first move, as white, a program might be told to play 'e4' 50%, 'd4' 25%, 'Nf3' 10%, etc. A traditional random number generator can be used to make this decision.

When two human players match up they'll spend months preparing for the games by studying each others style, from past games. In the same way, before a high profile computer vs. human chess match, the author of the chess program will adjust these percentages to try to guide to program in a direction that he/she thinks would be advantageous against this certain opponent.

Re:explanation?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck is this piece of incorrect speculation "informative?"

Re:explanation?

[Anonymous Coward]

which varies the games right off the back

Right off the back? Do you really think that's the way it's said?

Re:explanation?

[frankie]

Four rounds of play means they are also doing the "mirror match" contests of AMD Fritz vs Intel Fritz and AMD Shredder vs Intel Shredder. Those two will be purer benchmarks, since it eliminates the program differences.

Re:explanation?

[emarkp]

Actually, Deep Blue was most likely over-optimized for Kasparov, and got even more so during their match. It hasn't done too well when it's competed against other computers. It's unlikely it would do well against any other GM.

AMD will prevail

[Anonymous Coward]

The chess benchmarks are really a test of integer performance, not float. The higher clock speed should win. But since these are dually systems, it will prove who has the best SMP implementation. I think that what they will find is that AMD is now the premier computations CPU. But at least P4 is outstanding in the Q3A benchmarks, truly a consumer CPU. I hope the scientific/computational community takes note and tells INTEL to stick it up their Goatse.cx arse.

Hey

[sinserve]

My MS-DOS 5/286 Commander Keen is challenging Taco's lesbian Sims running on a Linux
ThinkPad, to a side scrolling mud fight.

Can anyone explain...

[krogoth]

What exactly does speed/power have to do with this?

Re:Can anyone explain...

[herrd0kt0r]

basically, it just shows which computer is better at playing chess, using different chess programs.

kinda like having me play britney spears at chess: a smart dood versus a dumb bimbo. we may both know the rules, and one might try to infer that i'm smarter, but basically all i'd be doing is showing that i play chess better.

but you know what they say:
bewbies are the ultimate equalizer of intellect.

in which case i'd lose cause i can't concentrate, or lose cause i want her to win. screw having a good score in chess when you can get to first base!

Re:Can anyone explain...

[CodeShark]

Because they are switching the programs between the machines, etc., it comes down to a CPU vs. CPU, higher GHz vs. better processor logic.

The point which hasn't been emphasized much is that the AMD processor is purported to have better branch prediction logic, which if true, would mean that even though the processor may not be running as fast, it predicts which code is going to execute more accurately, thus spending less time on the wrong decision path.

By switching systems and resetting the learning engines in between test runs, in theory you eliminate the advantage of one chess program over the other. If Shredder wins more often, for example, than Fritz 7, then it can be assumed to be the better program, or visa versa. But if the specific results show which processor wins more often with which program, and it always favors one CPU, then you could conclude that either higher speed is more important or better branch prediction is more important.

Re:Can anyone explain...

[krogoth]

Branch prediction wouldn't affect this. It only predicts what code to execute next, not what move to make. The only way the processors could make a difference is if the faster one has an advantage.

Re:Can anyone explain...

[CodeShark]

If I am understanding your response correctly, you missed partof my point about branch prediction. All of the newer x86 processors pre-queue a number of machine language instructions into the processor core. The more often the branch prediction is correct, the less often this instruction pipeline has to be flushed and reloaded. The effect of this is that while processor "A" which made a correct prediction is going on and executing the code in the pipeline, processor "B" which made an incorrect prediction must reload new machine code for the correct branch, then execute it.

Let's say for the sake of argument that processor "A" is 20% slower than "B", but makes a better prediction 30% of the time. Depending on how many times the branch prediction logic is called into play in these chess programs, processor A may in fact have an advantage over processor B. Which is what this interesting chess contest may tend to reveal.

Re:Can anyone explain...

[krogoth]

I may not have been entirely accurate about branch prediction, but in the end it's just another way to make the processor work faster. Now how does the speed affect the performance of theses AIs?

Re:Can anyone explain...

[CodeShark]

Analagously: imagine you are in an open road car race and your car is 20% faster than the opponent. You should always win, right?

With your car being so fast, however, you have to make decisions about which turns to take quite a bit before actually making the turn. Which in turn means that you have to predict which turn to take ahead of time. When you are correct, you will maintain the 20% speed advantage. However, when your prediction is not correct and your slower opponents is , he/she/it gets to proceed down the road, where you have to dump your current roadmap, reload at the point where the prediction missed, then start racing in the right direction again.Let's say the open road race is from LA to Detroit, your car at 240 mph, the opponent's at 200 mph. But you have to take 400 exits because you missed a turn, and the opponent only has to exit 200 times. Obviously if the cumulative effect of your "wrong" predictions is too high, then the slower car will win.

In the case of the AI chess programs, they are obviously going to have a high number of "if" type machine code branches, because the program is doing alot of comparisons to find the "best" move. So like the car analogy: during the "move calculation" phase, if processor "A" pre-loads the wrong set of machine codes to execute based on it's internal branch prediction logic, then the execution of the code to find the right move will take longer than the same program for the "slower but more accurate predictor" processor B.

In theory then, for two equally matched chess programs (or the same chess program on two different processor based machines), the more accurate prediction would result in that computer being able to look further out in the move tree and possibly come up with a better move than it's opponent-- which may calculate moves faster but has to deal with a much higher machine code instruction count (because of the wrong prediction in the machine code) in order to come up with the best answer. Get it?

hrmn...

[herrd0kt0r]

all this processing power, and i'm watching two computers too stupid to draw.

move 125! move 126! move 127!

...

move 32489! move 32490!
[insert blue screen of death on both computers here]

Re:hrmn...

[Aighearach]

Don't blame it on the computer, it is the human operators who tell the computer if it should find draws acceptable, or blindly keep hoping for the opponent to make a mistake.

Actually, because the nature of the search algorithms used in chess (for a great example check out the crafty program, it's open source and almost as strong as fritz... the latter can't be said for gnuchess, which is so weak even I can beat it), even in engame positions it is common for the computer to only be able to see 5 to 7 moves deep. In the opening, that's a lot of moves because the position can change in many different ways. But in certain types of endgames, there can be "positionally static" situations, which means that you _could_ move a lot of your pawns, but the nature of the position is that you really can't. The computer has to calculate out all these moves anyway. A human doesn't. This means sometimes the computer looks 10 moves in, doesn't see any change, and thinks it would be a draw. Whereas, the human realizes, "hey, neither of us can move any pawns, and our bishops are all useless because they're blocked. I have all the time in the world. Look, I can move my king 15 times and be on the other side of the pawn structure, and then I can sack this pawn to free my bishop and win." This is why the computers usually default to not accept draws... they can't really be very sure of them.

Re:hrmn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention too stupid to win. Game 5 was a
won position for AMD Fritz, and it was too stupid to exchange the bishop for the knight (it had several
opportunities), so the game eventually was declared a draw.

This is why I hate computer chess. Computers really know nothing about chess. To call computer chess "AI" is a really big joke.

Stalemates?

[seanscottrogers]

Is there an over-riding force to prevent stalemate moves from continuing forever?

Re:Stalemates?

[Ziviyr]

Is there an over-riding force to prevent stalemate moves from continuing forever?

Chess has rules.

Re:Stalemates?

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to the ko rules, many people will stop playing when the game cannot be finished.(like, when there are only kings left)

Interesting, but probably Inaccurate

[reynolds_john]

I'm not sure raw performance can be gauged by 'victories' in chess, seeing as how each situation will present new, and different calculations to be decided.

It would be much more interesting to see them each perform calculations based on say ten thousand different chess scenarios, and show that side by side in the java applet. This way they are both presented with the same problem solving task.

Re:Interesting, but probably Inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

If you mean to know what CPU is better for chess. By all means use positions and faster calculation will translate to better play. But, using test sets have been tried for ages. And it does not say much about the strength of the chess programs. As an example of the non translatability of the score to real strength:
There are quite many chess engines that allow changing paramenters. And the spectacularly successful solving profiles will be crushed by less prodigious bethren. The trick in chess is not to find the tactical shot fastest. But to accrue the advantages translated to that advantage.

Re:Interesting, but probably Inaccurate

[another blockhead]

Solving ten thousand problems is a task that is likely to be I/O bound. The match currently underway is a better way to demonstrate a difference in raw CPU performance, if a significant difference exists.

... and it's certainly more interesting to see the games than to count how many milliseconds are needed to solve each of 10,000 chess problems, at least if chess is interesting to you at all!

Do they switch processors and programs as well?

[arunkv]

Right now the games seem to AMD/Shredder vs. Intel/Fritz. Is there going to be a round with AMD/Fritz vs. Intel/Shredder? Any why not have plain AMD/Fritz vs. Intel/Fritz?

Re:Do they switch processors and programs as well?

[herrd0kt0r]

look at the chart at the bottom of the page-- it would appear that they'll play every combination, including AMD/Fritz vs Intel/Fritz.

google translation

[AlienSquid]

Google Translation

A condition for complete regarding of this side is a Java suited Browser with switched on Java. Applet used from us to the representation of the animated chessboard with numerous Web Clients under different operating systems one tested. Incompatibilities with certain Browserkonfigurationen are not to be excluded nevertheless.

LOL, microsoft article

[Anonymous Coward]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; EN-US;q247804 That is _seriously_ funny. One of the best written pieces of documentation for the Linux platform... on how to remove it.

Battle of the CPU's

[cybermace5]

It would be more useful (and more entertaining) if each box were given a battery pack and a set of wheels, and AI to duke it out in the ring.

Somehow, this reminds me of the Rocky movies...ah yes, Intel's P4 clad in patriotic colors as Uncle Sam....

Intel vs AMD: Death Match 2002

[dmnic]

this is much better than what's currently on the tv. been watching this 1 game for the past 10 minutes...they have distinct personalities.
at one point they played a game of 'follow-me-around;' quite comical.
too bad I cant read German...

For the German Impared

[ALoverOfPeace]

AMD is up 11-7, with 8 stalemates. AMD has 15 points (57.7%) while Intel has 11 (42.3%). I assume the points are some sort of chess match scoring mechanism. I've only had 2 years of rudementary German, so I can't translate the article or anything close.

Re:For the German Impared

[TC (WC)]

As I understand it, you get 1 point for a win, 0 for a loss. However, for a draw you each get a half point.

Update: submission is from yesterday

[nniillss]

The first match ended with a slight advantage for Shredder/Intel versus Fritz/AMD: 20 wins, 22 losses, 29 draws. The present match is for the flipped combinations: now Shredder/AMD leads with 11 wins, 7 losses, and 8 draws against Fritz/Intel. These results indicate a superiority of the AMD architecture (2x Athlon MP 2000+) over the Intel architecture (2x Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz) (see here) which would be in line with the chess SPECINT result.

Note that both programs learn from game to game within each match, but are reset after the match. In the first match, Shredder started very weak and had a steeper learning curve against Fritz. Since in the second match Shredder/AMD already started strong, a landslide victory for this combination appears likely.

iii'm da paaarty poopar

[yobbo]

Can't wait for Big Blue to rock up and kick both their asses :)

Warning

[Slashdot's Attorney]

Slashdot takes no responsibility for any injuries that may result from any type of "death match," and does not encourage such activities. The above story is offered for informational purposes only, and is not to be construed as condoning any type of violence.

Speed Chess

[Dr_Harm]

My guess on the "how is this a benchmark" question is that they're actually playing speed chess.

Each side is evaluating moves with a maximum time limit per move. If they make a decision sooner, that's fine. But if the time expires, they just take the best move they've found so far.

In theory, whichever side can evaluate more moves to evaluate the alpha-beta minimax tree to a deeper level within the time allowed _should_ win.

So, in effect, they are evaluating which side can look at more nodes/sec, but taking an average over the entire game, and reducing the answer to a one-or-the-other result instead of a numerical comparison.

Like most benchmarks, all it tells you is how well the benchmark ran. But, I have to admit, this is a pretty novel approach.

server problems

[Patrick13]

I hope neither of these machines is also hosting the web server, because it looks like it just got slashdotted.

:(

Re:server problems

[Antity]

Still responding fine here for the last hours. Maybe it's just your network connection.

It's somewhat tough to bring heise.de down. :-) These guys usually know what they're doing.

A better idea

[cybian]

I have a better idea. Put up two identical websites; one on AMD, one on Intel. Post the links on Slashdot and see which one stays up the longest.

Re:A better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAHAH

MOD PARENT UP!!!

Re:A better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunatly the Intel one would win because everyone here would go to the one hosted on the AMD.

Re:A better idea

[orkysoft]

Have you never heard of the phenomenon called "double blind test"?

Re:A better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you never heard of the phenomenon called "double blind test"?

Phenomenon? Idea, I think you mean.

Enron performance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your $1.00 is 0.98 now. But give or take two more Enrons and you can kiss your sig goodbye ;)

Already runs for a while

[Antity]

The contest is already running for more than a day, it was not started today:

According to the contest's page the contest was started on June 25th, 5pm local time.

More or less just nitpicking. :-) But the programs have already played several dozend matches. (and scored nearly exactly 1:1 the last time I had a look - 29 won by Athlon, 29 won by Xeon, for example.)

The reason that the counters are at "0" at the moment is that they are being reset at about this time of day everyday.

Uhh ... AMD is winning?

[Hektor_Troy]

I may not be the best at understanding german, but I can certainly translate this:

Anmerkung zur Runde 1: Fritz/AMD gewinnt geget Shredder/Intel 20 Partien, remiseirte 29 Partien und verliert 22 Partien

into

Noted for round 1: Fritz/AMD won against Shredder/Intel in 20 games, got a draw in 29 games and lost 22 games.

Translating that into points, AMD has 34½ points (20 wins * 1 point/win + 29 draws * ½ point/draw) and Intel has 36½ points (22 * 1 point/win + 29 draws * ½ point/draw).

How is AMD winnning?

And at the moment, that score means nothing, as Shredder could be the better program, but being held back by the Intel CPU, just as Fritz could be the better program being held back by the AMD CPU - we won't know until the bitter end.

Talk about premature conclusions ... this is even more premature than CNN declaring Gore, then Bush, then Gore, then Bush the winner of Florida ...

Next time - learn the language of the article before drawing conclusions.

Read the article...

[cheezycrust]

there are four different configurations

How about...

[ocie]

A rock/paper/scissors benchmark.

Nostalgia for old pentium jokes

[sam_handelman]

Queen's Rook to Queen's Rook 3.999998456

Re:Uhh ... AMD is winning? Well ... maybe ...

[Hektor_Troy]

Hmm ... next time, I should enable Java in my browser ... hehe

It would appear that at this moment, AMD has 49½ points and Intel has 47½ points. But it's still too early to define a winner.

Java Plugin for Mozilla

[WankersRevenge]

Off topic, yes - but can someone point me in the direction for the Java Plugin for Mozilla. I just hate to use IE these days.

Re: Java Plugin for Mozilla

[Antity]

Good question. Really good question.

I had a hard time today myself locating the Java plugin for Mozilla/Win just to see this game. After a really long time searching for it on java.sun.com I finally gave up and clicked the "download plugin here" icon that Mozilla gave me. This JVM works for Windows, although I'd liked it more to have it downloaded by hand.

Yes, this is Off-Topic, I know. :-) But this was the first time for weeks I really wanted Java to see something on the 'net. Mod me down if you like. One man, one $VOTE. ;-)

Re:Java Plugin for Mozilla

[captain_craptacular]

I just clicked on the "get plugin" puzzle piece and dl'd the netscape java plugin... It seems to work fine for me.

Re:Java Plugin for Mozilla

[A5un]

Try this:
http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/

Re:Java Plugin for Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like a closed-source binary plugin to me. There should be some free software Java implementation by now?

Interesting... MOD PARENT UP +4

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know that :)

This is troubling

[Vought 28]

I just found out my on-line therapist is actually a P4 Xeon 2400. I felt I was getting bad advice from it...

what OS and RAM?

[Patrick13]

I found a page that has jpgs of the processor and the motherboard, but I couldn't find any mention of the OS or how much RAM they plugged into these guys?

anyone else find ?

Re: what OS and RAM?

[Antity]

At least RAM and Mainboard configuration is here (German).

I don't think anyone'd need The Fish for tech details. ;-)

Short answer: RAM is 1GB on both boards, timings are slightly different.

What this proves...

[porkface]

What this proves is simply that we love good old fashioned duels, and chess is one of the oldest and most universal. This is not about which chip is smarter, but about rooting for a sentimental favorite and cheering until a winner is crowned.

GO AMD!

Re:What this proves...

[Ctrl-Z]

"This is not about which chip is smarter, but about rooting for a sentimental favorite and cheering until a winner is crowned."

That's the wrong game. You're thinking of checkers.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It's worth mentioning...

[psyconaut]

...that chess is one of the most computationally intense applications known to man. Assuming you want to plot and evaluate full strategies, that is.

Mind you, I couldn't even beat the chess program on my Sinclair Spectrum with 48Kbytes of RAM, let alone a modern machine ;-)

-psyconaut

Re:It's worth mentioning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chess is computationally simple. It can simply be played using the full capability of a machine.

This doesn't make the computation itself complex. It doesn't need to be at all.

Re:It's worth mentioning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

You are right. I had a TI89a as my first machine running a chess program, and it was very hard to beat. Even though the machine was sloooow.

However, I've been watching these two programs play for half an hour now and some of the moves are apalling. Certainly I can do better. Especially the endgames of both programs could do with some improving - there were some situations I could win with my eyes closed, yet they managed to end in a draw.

There is a message board on the site as well (mostly german language posts) and it is full of complaints about the programs.

So how is this benchmark useful if these programs play an apalling kind of 'random' chess? The end results will be random as well and will prevent any conclusion to be drawn from this experiment.

- Q

Relation computer power - score

[nniillss]

According to information in the corresponding Heise forum, doubling the computer power brings about 100-150 ELO points (all combinations should be in the 3000 ELO range). A citation is Ernst A. Heinz: Scalable Search in Computer Chess, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden 2000, p. 126. Since AMD has about 20% advantage in the 186.crafty SPECINT benchmark (see here and here), one should expect a 20-30 ELO advantage for AMD. Weighted over all combinations of programs, the AMD architecture should score about 53-54% if the cited benchmark was significant.

In any case, the about 400 games to be played should suffice to find the true chess champion among both dual-processor setups.

Chess games are finite

[yerricde]

all this processing power, and i'm watching two computers too stupid to draw.

Chess has several ko rules that will end the game after no progress. For instance, if twenty-five rounds have passed without a capture or pawn move, or if the same board position has appeared three times, the game is a draw.

Re:Chess games are finite

[Hektor_Troy]

or if the same board position has appeared three times, the game is a draw.

Uhm, isn't it in three consecutive moves from both white and black?

Re:Chess games are finite

[Paradise Pete]

Uhm, isn't it in three consecutive moves from both white and black?

No, he's right, it's the same position three times, with "position" having a tighter definition than just the pieces being in the same place - It has to be the same player's move for each repetition, and with the same options, such as castling. One oddity, if the first occurrence permitted an en pasant capture then that could not be part of a repetition.

His first rule, though, was not quite right. he said "if twenty-five rounds have passed without a capture or pawn move." There are some positions where it has been proven that more than 50 moves are required to win against best defense. Those positions are excepted from the rule. Those proofs were done using computers, natch.

Re:Chess games are finite

[Alsee]

There are some positions where it has been proven that more than 50 moves are required to win against best defense.

I was about to mention that myself...

Those positions are excepted from the rule.

That I didn't know! Wouldn't that kind of rule get very long and ugly?

I just did a google seach and came up with this:
"Indeed, the FIDE Laws of Chess from 1993-1997 excepted certain classes of position from the 50 move rule. Although the Laws have since reverted"

Yep, the rules for it got way too long and ugly :)

-

Re:Chess games are finite

[paul.dunne]

No. This is a common mistake. The rule states that if an identical position, with the same player to move, has occured three times in the game, then the game is a draw by "repetition of position". It isn't a draw by virtue of repetition of moves, but by repetition of position.

Re:Chess games are finite

[Paradise Pete]

the Laws have since reverted

I didn't know that. Thanks. I'll bet they change it right back, though, if the human World Champ reaches one of those positions against a computer.

Re:Chess games are finite

[Alsee]

'll bet they change it right back, though, if the human World Champ reaches one of those positions against a computer.

I have a question... were you envisioning the human or the computer having the "won" position? And what is your reaction if you consider the reverse situation?

I doubt they will re-instate it. It's a laundry list of special cases. You don't want to have to look up a messy chart in a rule book every time you hit the endgame.

-

Re:Chess games are finite

[Paradise Pete]

I have a question... were you envisioning the human or the computer having the "won" position?

The human would have the winning position. The defenses that extend the game out beyond the 50 moves are, well, weird. It would be difficult for even the best human players to "defend" perfectly. I put defend in quotes because it isn't really a successful defense in that it saves the position - it's succeeds only because the rules say they have to stop playing.

So I imagine a world champion with a personality like, say, Fischer. He'd go nuts if he had a win but the arbiter stepped in and told he couldn't keep playing.

Re:Chess games are finite

[Alsee]

The human would have the winning position. The defenses that extend the game out beyond the 50 moves are, well, weird. It would be difficult for even the best human players to "defend" perfectly.

Ahh, now I understand your position, but I think you're mis-judging the situation. Often it is easy to defend and it is the attack that needs to be flawless :)

Here's a facinating problem, I suggest you actually try it: Grab a friend and a chessboard. You take a bishop, knight and king vs a lone king. Try to force a checkmate. Tell him to defend. Let him start with his king in the middle of the board. It's *possible* to force checkmate, but it's long and takes robotic precision. A brain-damaged yak playing defence can drag out the game merely by always trying to move to the center of the board. A human who has never studied this problem before doesn't have a chance in hell of pulling it off during a competition game. I believe it was first proven winnable by computer.

-

Re:Chess games are finite

[Paradise Pete]

Ahh, now I understand your position, but I think you're mis-judging the situation. Often it is easy to defend and it is the attack that needs to be flawless :)

In those cases where the attacker is an expert player a "squirrelly" defense is required to drag it out over 50 moves. That defense is difficult, not easy. BTW, if it helps qualify my opinions somewhat, When I played tournament chess I held a master's rating.

Here's a facinating problem, I suggest you actually try it: Grab a friend and a chessboard. You take a bishop, knight and king vs a lone king.

Yes, mating with a bishop and knight is difficult, and even most tournament players can't do it. But we're talking about a world-class player. For them it's not an overly difficult thing.

Re:Chess games are finite

[Alsee]

When I played tournament chess I held a master's rating.

Ah, cool. I used to be top board on my highschool chess team, but I never got rated.

I didn't really see a difference weather it's the computer attacking or defending in one of these cases. Changing the 50 move rule would give the computer time to force a mate about as often as it gave a human time to get the mate.

A flat change in the rule to 75 or a 100 moves could work. It's just a 50 move limit with 3 pages of exceptions that becomes a problem. It becomes expecially bad when they keep changing the rule every time a new case is analyzed.

-

Win vs Lin

[josh crawley]

article:

---"Who wouldn't like to see a Linux/Windows mine sweeper death match!"

Does a crash count as a withdraw?

Re:Win vs Lin

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, enlighten me. Were you trying to be funny? If so, why? I think you should consider your importance in this world and then proceed to place a handgun in your mouth and pull the trigger. You will do both me and the rest of the world a huge favor, not to mention your poor family.

tomshardware

[brer_rabbit]

Too bad this wasn't on Tom's Hardware instead. Regardless of the winner of the chess match, Tom's would determine the winner by highest frame rate in Battle Chess.

"Despite losing to the AMD, the Intel with the GeForce8 XP 512GB AGPxxx had a frame rate of 1882 FPS. Any chess player would appreciate the 4X anti-aliased graphics of the rook rock-monster pounding the opponent's pawns to pieces."

Re:tomshardware

[josh crawley]

"GeForce8 XP 512GB AGPxxx "......

SO! The industry finally found that adding the "porno transfer bus" along with standard AGP.

I guess in the future, autopr0n does survive ;-)

Re:tomshardware

[zerocool^]

• And they'd do

• it with 42 pages

• of explanation

• 
  and have only
  

Two words

• 
  per
  

• page.
• 
  
  ~Will

Re:tomshardware

[Stiletto]

Tom would have decided the winner by who paid him more for advertising. Look at his past reviews...

Re:tomshardware

[Anonymous Coward]

You Sir, are a damn funny man. :)

Re:tomshardware

[lert]

...and the article was probably written by the celèbre Tom Voelkel

-lert

Re:tomshardware

[lert]

sorry, I meant Frank instead of Tom...

Actual contest is...

[Krieger]

4 seperate rounds of roughly 55 games day. We've caught it at the beginning of the second day. AMD lost the first day by a couple points 20 wins, 29 ties, and 22 losses. AMD is currently winning the second round as of 8:28PM EST 12-7-9. Everyday they reset the computers (since the programs learn over the course of the day), and switch the programs. Obviously they're going to attempt to fill the product matrix and see which processor performs better with the different programs.

I'm curious to see how the different platforms perform...

I am suprised

[gotak]

How many people ask why this shows which processor is faster.

What does this have to do...

[ImaLamer]

Hey, people quit complaining about how this is pointless or what-not.

It's just damn cool. I'm interested in the results because, well it's just cool.

Go ahead mod me down. This is "key", people who think this isn't "key"... well they aren't "key". Scornful moderators aren't key.

Re:What does this have to do...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scorn is classic.

No Denis, No Peace
www.savedenis.com

Offtopic but way more important that this topic!

[Anonymous Coward]

A huge veneurability has been discovered in the BSD unixes, and Slashdot rejected my submission, so I'm posting it off-topic here.

xBSD has a bug in the resolver library, allowing root access through any program that uses DNS resolution! You will need to install a patch, and then recompile your entier operating system!

See the FreeBSD Security post HERE, or the Pine advisory at HERE
This is not a hoax, do not mod down! Posting anonymously so it doesn't look like I'm karma whoring.

well, maybe.

[jon_c]

There are AI competitions http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsbpc.html

-Jon

Re:well, maybe.

[Lord Omlette]

The best science that people can come up with for Paper-Scissor-Rock is based on the Princess Bride?!

Re:well, maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best science that people can come up with for Paper-Scissor-Rock is based on the Princess Bride?!

Tell me about it.. I'm surprised none of the entrants were called "Dread Pirate Roberts" or "Inigo Montoya"

Ko

[yerricde]

Is there an over-riding force to prevent stalemate moves from continuing forever?

See my other comment.

Gigs' Benchmarks

[GigsVT]

Here are my benchmarks, if the lameness filter lets them by.

Lower scores are better.

CPUGigstone:

bash$ time for (( x=1 ; x1000000 ; x++ )); do :; done

NetworkGigstone:

time for (( x=1 ; x100 ; x++ )); do wget www.slashdot.org; done

DeveloperGigstone:

time for (( x=1 ; x10 ; x++ )); do cd /usr/src/linux; make ; done

HardDiskGigstone:

time for (( x=1 ; x10 ; x++ )) do; dd if=/dev/urandom of=/tmp/testfile bs=1G count=1; rm /tmp/testfile; done

All the benckmarks you will ever need.

Re:Gigs' Benchmarks

[GigsVT]

Of course, insert &lt in the for statements where I forgot to escape them out of the HTML :)

FP?

[SAN1701]

I don't know much about chess algorithms, but aren't they exaustive calculations with integers only?
I mean, if we are not using (or using too litle) floating point units, the results of the test can be very biased. And, for financial, scientific, gaming, DTP, etc, FP is very used.
Anyway, this is one of the most fun bench tests I've seen.

Even better

[Anonymous Coward]

haha... From the summary:

Windows and Linux can coexist on the same computer. For additional information, refer to your Linux documentation.

But we won't show you how to do it... OH no...

um

[Ravagin]

Who wouldn't like to see a Linux/Windows mine sweeper death match!

Sorry? They're going to play each other in minesweeper?

Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[rocjoe71]

Who wouldn't like to see a Linux/Windows mine sweeper death match!

They already tried to pit Windows versus Linux in a chess match:

1) the Windows machine refused to make its first move-- Microsoft executives explained later that they shouldn't have to make the first move as this could lead to a compromise of it's security system, thereby leaving its horsey vulnerable to worm attacks.

2) Microsoft later on changed the rules of the chess game citing their freedom to 'innovate' chess, creating new game pieces like 'bazooka' and 'platypus'. Unfortunately, they wouldn't tell anybody else how to use the new pieces or even document that there _were_ new pieces. Once it became apparent that the new pieces were there the Linux camp asked to have them removed but Microsoft refused on the basis that removing the pieces would irretrievably 'break' the game of chess.

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[brer_rabbit]

Additional chess pieces added by Microsoft include a thimble, race car, dog, shoe, cannon, top hat, and wheelbarrow....

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[or_smth]

In fact, screw the chess game.

I want an all-out windows/linux match of monopoly.

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[inburito]

But what about clippy?

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we already had one!

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[ImaLamer]

Damn this should be an article in itself.

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[PSC]

Additional chess pieces added by Microsoft include a thimble, race car [...]

... and the paperclip!

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[Captain Large Face]

That's probably the best joke I've seen on Slashdot in quite a while. :-)

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[Lars T.]

Then MS would cheat by letting Gates play for the computer.

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[Vryl]

You funny, funny, funny guy.

Comic genius, I ha no laughed so hard is nary a while.

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[CodeShark]

Which would guarantee a loss for Winblows. Last I checked Mr. Gates was a master of many things (namely a whole lot of money and the things it can buy), but Chess isn't one of them.

Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match

[Lars T.]

Hello! We were talking about Monopoly!

The point of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers fight it out as only nerds can.

It IS a benchmark... presumably...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are claiming this as a benchmark then it must be that each CPU is given a certain amount to time to make their moves...

That way the test IS measuring speed... Which CPU can dive into the most iterations per X(second, minute?) and thus, win.

Benchmarking via Chess

[CaptainCaveman_2002]

So... does this mean that Deep Blue has a better benchmark score than Gary Kasparov?

Fascinating...

CHESS SCMESS!

[Anonymous Coward]

PHOOIE! They need to use these machines in ROBOTS and annihilate each other! Now THAT would be a benchmark! moving little pieces two dimensionally, crapola, my olden daze 286 and old macs could do that, we want COOLFACTOR + 10!

Then, the losers human interface need to walk into the disintegration chamber! No gutz, no glory, enough with hding behind the hardware, if these guys are serious, we need COMBAT!

Hmm...

[or_smth]

It seems to me that the end result of this would be that it is a stalemate (Draw).

I mean, both AMD and Intel processors can crunch the same amount of data, just not in the same amount of time...

and the other guy's turn kind of depends on how long one person/machine takes...

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

>and the other guy's turn kind of depends on how long one person/machine takes...
no it doesn't. time is limited to 10 minutes (+ 2 seconds per move). as pointed out in another post earlier.

Re:Eh? Nothing, eh ...?

[Anonymous Coward]

It proves nothing about chess, as chess is a contest between two human players: highly non-algorythmic tho a 'lie' in chess combat is quickly punished. I hesitate to call it a game, as chess is 'lawfull' - the rules of chess do not produce GOOD chess while the LAWS of chess ( ' can't allow your opponent to grab' ... open files/7th rank/outposts etcetc ... see -My System-) are only marginally related to the rules as every patzer quickly learns.

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chess being a "lawful" , rather than a rule_driven game, some moves are IMPOSSIBLE to compute --- see Godel for details ... BigBlues actions were 'queered' by a dozen, human GMs feeding clues BB could NEVER have found itself .

incredible

[Sir Elton John]

It's fascinating to see computers already at the point where they are practically players in a spectater sport. The Science Fiction authors of the 60's had it half right: technology has taken over, but not violently. Rather than be dominated by violent, fascist robots, we have chosen to assimilate computers into our very lives.

I'm proud of humanity, and I'm thankful for the visionaries who warned us away from the dark side of technology. I always love a chance to be proud of humanity.

Some things have changed since the 60's, but love of life and nature isn't one of them. I can't wait to see what comes up next...we're all in it together, and the grand finale is right around the corner!

YOU ALL SUCK! WE WANT MUSICAL TROLL!

[cybermint]

Your first posts suck! Musical Troll, where are you!?!?!?

Minesweeper is not a game of skill

[wadetemp]

Yes, it has a strategy, but if you have perfected the strategy it all boils down to a game of chance, with random odds. It might be a good test for your computer's random number generator but that's about it. (And this happens to be the case on both Linux and Windows, except on Windows you have the added risk that your computer might crash while you're playing.

Dumb Idiots

[voxel]

Dumb asses, benchmarking CPU's for chess playing ability is done ALL THE TIME. Just because it is new to one geek doesn't mean it is news worthy.

I swear...

benchmark

[in_ur_face]

this is retarded...

Or...

[Matey-O]

"What's next? Who wouldn't like to see a Linux/Windows mine sweeper death match!"

Just have one Lindows box, sitting the the corner, playing with itself.

Actually luck is a factor in this

[theskov]

A very basic concept in chess computers is the min-maxing:

At turn n lets say the computer looks 4 turns ahead, including the current (very simple example): The algorithm chooses the most favorable move in its own turns (turn n and n+2), and the least favorable in the opponents turns (turn n+1 and n+3). The best achieveable result possible for a given move is hereby found and stored. When all moves has been examined the one with the highest min-maxing score is chosen.

A very important extension of this principle is pruning (yes it's called that....), which means that after the first move has been analysed completely and the min-maxing score found, the algorithm needs only check other moves until the opponent in his turn (n+1 and n+3 in the example) has the opportunity to chose a move with a worse min-max score. This cuts off whole "branches" of moves to search.

And although you can optimize the choice of which moves to search first (you'll want to search the best moves first, so that you can quickly prune later moves) you can never be sure. And that introduces an element of chance into an otherwise luck-free game.

Of course with the amount of iterations of the algorithm, it's very unlikely that this will not even out.

- Skov

This doesn't matter

[ken_mcneil]

The way computers play chess is almost completely unrelated to real world tasks.

Moves are generated by representing the chess board as a set of 64-bit integers, where each bit of the integer represents a yes/no property of one of the 64 squares (i.e. is this square occupied by a white pawn?). By using boolean algebra on these integers (called bitboards) you can perform most of the operations required very efficiently. For example, to see which white pawns could advance you might take the white pawn bitboard and left shift it by 8 (moving each pawn up one row) then AND that bitboard with the logical NOT of a bitboard with the OR of all the pieces on the board. Does this sound like any day-to-day applications you know of (zero floating-point)? Didn't think so.

In fact the instruction set of most CPUs aren't well suited for some of the more difficult parts of move generation (like bishop, rook, and queen moves), so Deep Blue used specially made "chess chips" from IBM. They probably did more than just move generation, but the details are a little thin.

Beyond move generation, these programs use a very sophisticated set of heuristics to decide which moves should be analyzed first and which lines of play are not worth exploring too deeply. It's these algorithms that make the big difference between one program and another, not hardware.

So, these results will say something about which chipset is better, but it's in a very narrow area that doesn't matter too much.

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[Paradise Pete]

BigBlues actions were 'queered' by a dozen, human GMs feeding clues BB could NEVER have found itself

You make it sound like it was done during the games. No, this was pre-match preparation, and the exact same thing is done by human players in preparing for a match. They also have "seconds," with whom they sit down each night and analyze the day's game. If the game was adjourned, meaning it will be completed the next day, then they analyze that position, too.

Nah, what we REALLY want is..

[DrVxD]

Put a bunch of Eraserbots on each machine and let them deathmatch it out.

Underdog Privilege?

[poity]

Seems like a win-win situation: Scenario 1 (AMD loses): "Well, of course, I could have told you AMD was going to lose from the beginning. How could you even think to compare a 2ghz rated cpu with a 2.4ghz one! Duh!" Scenario 2 (AMD wins): "Well, of course, I could have told you AMD was going to win from the beginning. How could you even think that a P4 could compete with advanced Athlon technology! Duh!" Righteous militant Intel-bashers, come forth!

Intel Just took AMD's Queen

[awgneo]

Subject speaks for itself.

Why don't these boxes do something useful?

[__fastcall]

Playing Chess? C'mon.

Why don't we set these boxes up to analyze and plot out the RIAA's next Evil Plan® before even they come up with it. God forbid we actually protect ourselves from Jack the RIAApper.

What does it prove?

[Anonymous Coward]

That any java applet will cause Mozilla and MSIE to freeze if you give it enough time. Mod me down if you like, but it's true. In my case my browser locked tight after watching 10 moves. I'm using the newest of the new JRE 1.4 plugin.

Weird opening moves ...

[Hektor_Troy]

I've been watching this match on and off for the last couple of hours, and it seems to me, that they have some pretty weird opening moves (as in "non classical") ...

1. d2-d4 Ng8-f6
2. c2-c4 g7-g6
3. g2-g3 Bf8-g7
4. Ng1-f3 0-0

Not having played a lot of chess on time, I'm not entirely sure, if these are regular moves to upset the board quickly - any players willing to venture some guesses?

Re:Weird opening moves ...

[peter stayne]

You're certainly right, they are 'non-classical', but not uncommon. Openings like that one are known as King's Indian Defenses and are part of a larger group of openings called Hypermodern.

Re:Weird opening moves ...

[mefistofeles]

Well, actually a correct terminology would be that both are using an indian setup. To me the Kings Indian black plays d7d6. Should black play d7-d5 in the aforementioned position it would be Grünfeld(-ish).

/Mef.

Re:Weird opening moves ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been watching this match on and off for the last couple of hours, and it seems to me, that they have some pretty weird opening moves (as in "non classical") ...

Well this is a non main-line of the KID ; King-Indian Fianchetto (ECO: E60j).
My database has 3000+ such games, including a "Karpov-Shirov", "Kasparov-Topalov" ... most recent world-champions seem to have faced this position one day (including also Spassky, Fischer, Tal, Petrossian) ; and thus probably many recent GMs also.

Re:Weird opening moves ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you means King's Little Endian Defense

Ba-Dum-Cha!

Re:Weird opening moves ...

[tomknight]

My favourite is the St George's Defence... Karpov v Miles, 1980.
1. e2-e4 a6-a7

Miles won after 46 moves. Karpov said he found Miles' defence to be an "insult". Class.

Tom.

Re:Weird opening moves ...

[tomknight]

DOH!! I meant, of course,
1. e2-e4 a6-a5

(Although a6-a7 would be pretty amazing!)

And yes, I previewed. Sad really....

Tom.

PPC/Mac

[ghopper]

They should involve a PowerPC/Mac and some other CPUs/OSes in the fray. THAT would make an interesting tournament...

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[void*]

You're smoking rock.

Godel's First Incompleteness Theorem: Any adequate axiomatizable theory is incomplete. In particular the sentence "This sentence is not provable" is true but not provable in the theory.
Godel's Second Incompleteness Theorem: In any consistent axiomatizable theory (axiomatizable means the axioms can be computably generated) which can encode sequences of numbers (and thus the syntactic notions of "formula", "sentence", "proof") the consistency of the system in not provable in the system

The reason you're smoking rock: Chess is a finite state machine, not an axiomatizable theory.
Chess is not an axiomatic system that is used to prove or disprove statements (an 'axiomatizable theory'). The rules of chess are not an axiomatic system that make statements about number theory or anything else, they are merely rules that can be applied to get from one board position to another. In other words, chess is a finite state machine, with the players deciding what move to make (when it's their turn) to get to the next state. There are, admittedly, a huge number of states, but to apply Godel's theorem you'd have to be able to truthfully say something like 'There is a position in chess which is a legal position, but is not reachable by starting with the initial board position and applying moves". You cannot make this statement truthfully, since if it were unreachable in this fashion, the conceived-of position is not legal.

Kudos

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the bazooka and the platypus reference.
I got a good laugh.

Windows/[Gnu/]Linux Minesweeper Deathmatch

[Ctrl-Z]

Oh, come on! That wouldn't even be a challenge. Windows wins hands down... I mean, you stick with what you're good at, right?

Bah to Minesweeper

[DaPhoenix]

Windows would win cause their version of Minesweeper has that little bug w/ the pixel in the upper left hand corner of the screen showing you when the mouse is over a bomb!

Dont believe me? fire it up, type xyzzy on your favourite windoze buddy's computer, then press the left shift button..

You might have to refresh the background to get it to work..

This has been going on for some time...

[peter stayne]

The full install of Fritz 7 includes software to play chess on their Playchess.com servers. What's pertinent to this discussion is the 'Engine Room' area where you can load various chess-playing engines (like Fritz7, Shredder, Gambit Tiger, Junior et al...) and have your computer play someone else's computer. Generally, the person with the faster computer (and/or better engine, though most use Fritz7) has a much higher chance of winning. My computer (Athlon XP 2000+, GB of RAM [500mb for hash tables]) has played over 1200 games there (you can leave it unattended, so no I don't sit through all those games :P ) and is usually near the tops of the rankings. With tens of thousands of games being played daily there between engines, and considering the results support the 'faster computer wins, all engines being equal' theorem, statistical laws should help support the argument that chess IS a test of CPU might. I'm certainly not advocating Anand's or Tom's or whoever should drop explicitly empirical benchmarks in favor of chess, but personally, doesn't a bit of direct machine competition throw a bit of fun (dare I say) into the whole 'this hardware is better than that hardware' (in this case, MP's and Xeons) benchmarking struggle?

Black is, of course, king's indian defense (NT)

[Anonymous Coward]

Black is, of course, king's indian defense

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[Buck2]

What if I was playing chess on the bed and someone came and jumped on the bed and knocked some of the pieces onto the covers?

Huh, what kind of move is that, huh? Knight to pillow3? Not illegal like I'm going to get thrown in jail (I hope, chess is strict).

What does Goody-Godel have to say about that?

Re:Winner to face IBM's Power4 CPU (MOD UP +5)

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe Power 4 runs between 1 GHz and 1.3 GHz.

Armwrestle

[Anonymous Coward]

Who could win in an armwrestling match, Linus or Bill?

Too exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

is it just me, or after a few pabsts, is this the best excitement on a wed. night...

Speed

[Mizery De Aria]

Why not just set both computers to count in integers from 1 upgwards and see which reaches googol first.

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[comic-not]

Interesting, but makes me think. Let's redefine the meaning of TRUE for a chess game to equal any state that does not per se contradict the rules, and FALSE to equal all other states. False states include, e.g., kings next to each other or all states containing any other number than exactly one king of each color on the board (I am considering chess to be a machine where each of the 64 variables can hold any single value for the group Empty, and pawn, horse, bishop, castle, queen, king of either color (there are thus 17**64 or the order of 1e78 states altogether). Furthermore, let's call the starting position of a chess play an axiom (it's the only one in this case). Now we can construct, starting from this axiom, other true statements (quite a large number of them, actually). However, there is also a large number of both true and false statements which cannot be reached from the axiom by applying the rules of chess. Let's consider some examples.

• White king at A1 and black king at A3 is a provably true statement.
  
• White king at A1 and black king at A2 is a provably false statement.
  
• White king at A1, no other pieces on the board is a false but unprovable statement (there is no move for removing a king from the board, so this is a metamathematical result).
  
• White king at E3, all other pieces as in the initial position is a true but unprovable statement.
  

In any case, I do not think that one needs to take such a vehemently personal take on the topic. This is an interesting issue that I would like to discuss in a civilized manner (as people who have both played their share of chess and read enough Godel (and other mathematics as well)).

I'm a workaholic on withdrawal - and working hard not to relapse - comic-not

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[comic-not]

Sorry, 13**64 or 1e71. My mind was wandering. Anyway, the insight that Godel gave was exactly that although "King at E3, all other in their initial positions" is "illegal" since it cannot be reached by valid moves, it is still a "statement" of chess and as such an unprovable one.

Re:Offtopic but way more important that this topic

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me give you a bell! whatever!

fair?

[dfgdfgdfg]

First of all, chess programs don't use floating point calculation, so this aspect is not compared.

Second, there are chances Fritz is optimized for the Intel. It's proprietary so we don't know but Fritz is known for having parts of it written in assembler, and these are surely optimized for Pentium.

Bye the way, wouldn't it have been simpler to just run the Fritz benchmark on both machines?

Re:fair?

[peter stayne]

chess programs use plenty of floating point calculation as it decides the value of each position. Material value in professional chess software is generally not represented by integers as, say, a knight on the edge of the board is worth far less than a knight controlling key squares inside an opponent's ranks. Running FritzMark wouldn't be as interesting :)

Intel Shredder

[Captain Large Face]

Personally, I'm looking forward the Intel Shredder vs. AMD Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo.

Will the rooks look like Technodromes? Will Krang (?) play the king? April could definitely be the queen, although it's a bit of a wierd combination with Splinter, who'd have to be the other king..

Game on!

Re:Your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

My $0.02 will always be worth more than your 0.02, so :P

EUR/USD currently at .9832-37 (ask/bid), moving towards parity. Time to change your sig? :-)

Re:Ooooh! Ooooh! Me! Me! Me!

[JesFlemm]

They should make them bots on an unreal tourny 2k3 server. That would be pretty sweet.

Controlled Conditions?

[Underwaterbob]

As far as I can tell this isn't proving anything about the two processors since they are both running separate chess AIs.

There's no way to tell whether it's the processor power or the AI that's determining who's winning.

Re:Controlled Conditions?

[peter stayne]

The match schedule says that they will play a certain amount of games with each AI on each platform, thus, with combined scores, eliminating the AI variable from the picture.

Re:Controlled Conditions?

[Underwaterbob]

Too bad I don't read German.

Rules Correction

[Aighearach]

The rules is 50 moves without a pawn move or a capture, not 25.

Yes, IAATD (I Am A Tournament Director)

Game 4?

[NitroWolf]

What I wanna know is... How the hell did AMD Fritz lose Game 4 with 3 pawns, a knight and the king against a pawn and king from Intel Fritz?

Duh... my faith in AMD is waning!

Computer Nerds

[boatboy]

Unfortunately, the whole affair came to an abrupt end today when some bigger, more popular computers beat up the nerdy chess computers.

Moves, or rounds?

[yerricde]

The rules is 50 moves without a pawn move or a capture, not 25.

Fifty moves (as you said) equals 25 rounds (as I said), right?

Re:Moves, or rounds?

[Aighearach]

Incorrect. In chess a "move" means a move by bother players, what you are calling a "round." What you are calling a move is called a "half move." The only meaning of "round" in chess is in reference to a chess tournament.

The state of affairs

[HalfByte]

current scores:

• first round: Fritz/AMD vs. Shreder/Intel
  Fritz/AMD wins 20, draws 29 and loses 22 games
• second round: Shredder/AMD vs. Fritz/Intel
  Shredder/AMD wins 26, draws 22 and loses 23 games
• third round: Fritz/Intel vs. Fritz/AMD
  Fritz/Intel wins 27, draws 42 and loses 18 games

There is also a flash version available.

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[void*]

True enough, and then Godel's theorem would apply, to the axiomatic system that you just defined. However, that system is -not- the game of chess, you grok? It would be an axiomatizable theory based on the rules of chess, but any true but unprovable statement in your axiomatic theory would -not be a legal position- in chess. All legal positions in chess are reachable via the rules, since the rules are what defines a legal position. Therefore, no positions _impossible_ to calcucate (however, there is the practicality issue)

I wasn't taking a vehemently personal stance, I was vehemently disagreeing - the 'you're smoking rock' bit wasn't intended as a personal attack but as an emphasis of my position, I apologize if it was taken in another manner.

Re:explanation? Impossible !!!

[void*]

If you brought a bed in to play chess on at a
tournament, and jumped on it, the judges would
probably either kick you out or make you walk up to the scoreboard and mark yourself a loss ;)

Thanks for the laugh, i enjoyed it. :)