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Hi Greg:

Bad news. I followed your instructions completely but cannot run the app. Now the emerged window had a black background, no text and there was only a blinking cursor; the window header said:

C:\users\Carlos\downloads\ChessV2.2RC1\ChessV2.2RC1\ChessV.Engine.exe

Out of curiosity, I tried to do the same thing I did with Nebiyu, that is, to run it with WinBoard but the action was stopped.

It seems that I have no choice but to wait for the new ChessV version.

Thank you very much for all!

Ok, I'll post an updated version tonight or tomorrow that fixes this problem.  Thanks to your error message I believe I know what the problem is.

I have posted a new version that will hopefully fix the issue with Windows 10:

http://chessv.org/downloads/ChessV2.2RC2.zip

Carlos, if you have a chance, can you please download, unzip and run ChessV.exe and let me know if it works?

Hi Greg.

Unfortunately the problem persists.

I must tell you that I am now using a new recently purchased HP laptop, whose main specifications are:

Model: 14-cm0026la

Name: LAPTOP-M9SUMFI7 

Processor: AMD A4-9125 RADEON R3, 4 COMPUTE CORES 2C+2G 2.30 GHz

Installed RAM: 4.00 GB (3.88 GB usable)

Operative System: Windows 10 Home (1903 version)

When I double click on ChessV.exe, a window pops up saying "Fatal Error. Directory of piece set graphics could not be found. Please re-install ChessV."

After re-downloading http://chessv.org/downloads/ChessV2.2RC2.zip and following the whole process to run it, I get the same outcome.

If I double click on ChessV.Engine, then it pops up a window with a black background, a blinking cursor and a header saying "C:\Users\Carlos\Downloads\ChessV2.2RC2\ChessV2.2RC2\ChessV.Engine.exe" 

What's going on?

The ChessV.Engine.exe shouldn't show you anything.  That is just a stand-alone engine for playing with Winboard or another GUI.  To use ChessV interactively, run ChessV.exe.

Ok, let's try one more thing to fix the problem.  I think I know what this issue is.  I see in your path that you have two folders named ChessV2.2RC2, one inside the other.  Please rename the first (outer) one to something that does not contain ChessV.  For example, you could rename it Test and then your path would look like this:

C:\Users\Carlos\Downloads\Test\ChessV2.2RC2\ChessV.exe

Then try running ChessV.exe again.

Okay, following your instructions, I was finally able to run the program. It's wonderful! 106 chess variants available!

Congratulations Greg. You have done an excellent job.

Thanks again for all your support!

Which error you were talking about guys?!...

Carlos,

Thank you for your help testing.  We have been able to resolve three different bugs.  Releasing an official version with an installer is a pain so it is good to get these issues solved first.

Aurelian,

There have been three different issues.  The first, with the previous release, involved buttons on the main screen being the wrong size with certain display settings.  The second, with the previous 2.2 release candidate involved errors related to trying to load DLLs dynamically not being allowed on Windows 10.  (Not actually a Windows 10 problem, but a problem related to the fact that it was built with a newer version of the .NET Framework which had extra restrictions.)  The most recent, from last night, "Fatal Error. Directory of piece set graphics could not be found. Please re-install ChessV" was caused by an issue with the path.  I need to make that more robust.

You are welcome, Greg. Let's follow playtesting your masterpiece! Have you thought about developing a ChessV app for mobile devices, tablets and phones?

Those who are participating in the current tournament and are playing Symmetric Chess for the first time maybe might be interested in seeing how ChessV manages the matter.

Nice video!

To answer your question, sure, I'd like to have a version for mobile devices, but it would not be simple.  All the user interface code would probably have to be changed and I do not know anything about mobile development.  I could learn, but there are so many things I want to do.  (One of the next things I plan to do is support hexagonal chess - that I know how to do.)  It would be nice if someone who had experience with mobile development took that on.

Sorry guys but I don't see any video.

Kevin, would you consider electing among several eligible initial position, hannibal chess 2  for example(akin to fisher 960 )?! Why choose when you can enrich?

Also I'd really perfer this elephant, but this is probably a matter of taste:

x              x

    x     x

    mEm

    x     x

x              x

Hi Aurelian

This may belong under the Hannibal Chess thread; I'd consider multiple setup positions for any number of my CV inventions at some point, once I'm sure I know how to get that available to Game Courier (GC) play.

 I think the type of elephant you've diagrammed is known as the lieutenant piece in Spartan Chess (that is, it's a ferfil that also has available to it non-capturing moves one step left or right orthogonally, if I understand the notation right). I've used that piece type already in a CV invention of mine (called Wide Chess, 12x8, hardly played yet - although I played you a game of it long ago). I'm not sure it would make Hannibal Chess (the way it stands) at least as playable, or more popular, in GC play - perhaps the straight ferfils, when in the current setup, are already pretty potent (though I know I mentioned people on the whole seem to prefer adding in powerful pieces, in CVs).

One other thing I concluded about popular CVs on GC from cursory study of the 1200+ GC games played list is that the most popular CVs on GC tend not to have many asymmetric-moving pieces (if any at all) in their setups; IMO, this is in line with Fergus' suggested guidelines for trying to design good CVs. Someone I've chatted with once told me they don't like to 'fight against their own pieces' (as opposed to those of the opponent), though they didn't like even Nightriders (or Waffles [WA]{!}) for that reason. Maybe it was mostly their own viewpoint, as Nightriders seem fairly popular with players, and not too irregular, perhaps.

Thanks, Greg, for answering. Hopefully soon some mobile apps developer could join and help in your ChessV undertaking.

I'm sorry to tell you that I have found these bugs:

1. In Ministers Chess setup the i-rook and the h-knight from White side are switched.

2. In Sac Chess both kings cannot castle.

3. When rotating the boards the numerical coordinates remain unchanged.

4. In Gross Chess the window size does not fit proportionally to the PC screen.

Aside of that, I'm enjoying immensely your masterpiece!

Hi, Carlos.  Thank you for finding and reporting these.  Good catches!

I was able to fix numbers 1, 2, and 3 in just a few minutes.

Unfortunately, #4 is not really a bug.  The chess board display does not scale - the resolution of your screen must be large enough to accomodate it.  Perhaps your screen resolution is too low to fit a 12 x 12 board (or you have a zoom setting turned on.)  I want to improve this, part of which will be using the scalable vector graphics that H. G. made.  Currently the piece graphics are bitmaps so they would not scale well.  Some option to shrink would be nice anyway, but it will not make it into this version.

But if you find any other bugs, please let me know :)  I am going out of town for a few days and plan to make an official release of 2.2 when I get back if no new issues have been discovered.

ChessV 2.2 Released

The newest version of ChessV has finally be released and is available for download here.

New Features

• About 30 new variants have been added. The total is now over 100.
• Playing strength has been increased significantly.
• The engine now has a few configuration options:
  
  
  • Variation of Play - When set to "None", ChessV is completely deterministic as it was with previous versions. Options "Small", "Medium", and "Large" use various means to increase the variety. Small should not weaken the playing strength although higher settings probably will.
  
  
  • Weakening - A setting from 0 to 15 to reduce the strength of the engine
  
  
  • Transposition Table Size - This is now configurable from 16 MB to 4 GB
  
  
• The ChessV engine can now be used separately from the GUI if you wish to use it under a different GUI, such as WinBoard. The separate engine is ChessV.Engine.exe
• The power of the scripting language has been increased. 23 of the included games are now implemented with the scripting language.
• Various tools have been included such as a basic facility for running games in batch mode for testing and analysis.
• Lots of bugs have been fixed. Thanks to all those who helped with testing and reporting issues!

IMPORTANT: If you have a previous version installed you should uninstall it first. (This only applies to versions installed with an installer. If you used one of the test builds by unzipping and running you should be fine.)

It would be interesting to compare the small and medium variations of play. Greg has told me that it is not possible internally. But I think winboard can accept two *.exe files. It would not care that it is the same engine with diffret parameters. Is that corect?

That's right, that should work.  And the Variation of Play parameter can be set through the Winboard interface.

I have already downloaded the new version. Thanks again for your excellent work. I think the released date mentioned on your website has the wrong year.

Watch ChessV acting in all its glory!

@Greg

Where do I download winboard?

I have found it Greg!... No trouble! But how do I put things together now?

@Greg

I'm quite sure I did not made myself clear earlier, so the question was: How would setting up winboard play by 2 ChessV engines, one with small variation anoter with medium work :)? Thaks!...

I'm not sure, I don't really use WinBoard.  You specify the engines with /fcp and /scp switches (first chess program and second chess program.)  If you don't specify them on the command line, I believe it will ask you.  You don't neeed to make two copies of ChessV - you can point both to the same executable.  Then, somewhere in the user interface, are options to set engine parameters.

BUG ALERT: Do not set the transposition table size to anything larger than 1 GB.  If you chose a size larger than 1 GB, you will only get 16 MB (no matter how much RAM you actually have.)  This will be fixed in a future release.

Greg: I've installed ChessV 2.2 on my Windows 10 computer. When I execute it through either the executable or through the generated icons It seems to start, but never comes up. Has anyone else had this problem. I have not tried compiling the sources yet. Is that a logical next step. NOTE: I uninstalled the older version and re-installed V2.2 and now it works fine. Sorry for the comment.