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Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Nov 10, 2019 04:27 AM UTC:

ChessV 2.2 Release Candidate 1

It has been nearly two years since the last release, and that's far too long especially given all the improvements that have been made.  I've just been too unfocused, starting on adding more and more without fully testing and wrapping up.  Now things are mostly wrapped up, and, while I am not ready to make an official release, I am at least ready to relase it to the CVP community for a kick of the tires.  Although there are probably a couple of bugs, I fully expect this release to be pretty stable and it adds a TON of new stuff.  A partial list follows.

This pre-release version does not have an installer - just unzip and run the ChessV.exe.  It is built with .NET Framework 4.5.1.  It should run on any system with .NET Framework 4 or greater installed (emphesis on should - please let me konw if this doesn't work.)  This version of .NET is supported by Windows Vista and newer.  Thus, it will not work with Windows XP.  If there is demand, I might make one final release supporting .NET 2.0.  But even Vista is already end-of-life and Windows 7 goes EOL in two months.  Also, this should run under Mono so Linux users should be able to run it too although the UI won't look quite as pretty.

New Features/Improvements:

XBoard Engine – It is now possible to run the ChessV engine under Winboard or other compatible GUI.  Just run “ChessV.Engine.exe”.  This still requires .NET Framework 4+ or Mono.

Engine Configuration – The ChessV AI now has a couple of configurable parameters, for which you will be prompted when starting a game.  The “Variation of Play” option (“None”, “Small”, “Medium”, or “Large”) allows non-deterministic play.  Previous versions would always make the same move in the same situation.  “Small” should not weaken the engine at all while resulting in some variety – and the longer it thinks the more variety, at least to a point.  Medium may weaken play, I don’t know, but will lead to even more variety.  There is also a “Weakening” option specifically to weaken play so a human can have a fun game with a chance to win.  The size of the hash table is also configurable now.  These options are also exposed through the CECP (XBoard) protocol when running ChessV as a stand-alone engine.

Tools – A Tools button has been added to the main form that offers several functions (although without documentation.)  There is a Batch Mode that will allow ChessV to run lists of games in sequence with different parameters: different variants, different XBoard engines, different ChessV parameters such as Variation of Play, different time controls, and starting from different positions specified in saved game files.  Output is reported and can be configured to report in different ways depending on what is being tested.  For example, you can run gauntlets of ChessV against FairyMax and it will report win/loss statistics based on the engine that won.  But it can also run gauntlets between different Chess with Different Armies armies, and it will report the statistics based on which army won, not which engine was playing.  Sorry this isn’t really documented yet, but I will post example batches to demonstrate.  Some other tools are provided as well useful for testing, generating opening books, and documentation.

Scripting Language – This has seen a ton of improvement, and one can do a lot more.  It is basically possible to create games with new pieces, new combinations of rules, and even new board sizes.  But it is not yet powerful enough to create entirely new rules.  You can derive from existing games and just make changes, derive from abstract base classes by board size that offer useful features for that board size, or derive from generic and provide almost everything yourself.  See Duke of Rutlands Chess for an example of a game with a totally new board size and thus must define its own pawn double-move, castling, etc.  This version has 23 games defined by include script and, as development continues, more and more games will be defined in this way and not compiled internally unless there is a good reason.

New Games – Dozens and dozens.  We are now over 100 variants.  I’m not going to try to list them all, but here are some of the new and/or popular games now available: Symmetric Chess, Veteran Chess, Wildebeest Decimal Chess, Wildebeast9, Hectochess, Sac Chess, Frog Chess, Hannibal Chess, Xhess.

Performance Improvements – The strength of the internal engine has been significantly increased.

Bugs Fixed – Lots and lots.

DOWNLOAD: www.chessv.org/downloads/ChessV2.2RC1.zip

 


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