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<p>Matthew: I have discussed 5 second per turn because that was the criterion under which Roberto reported that my newest version under-performed the previous version. And his processor, 2.1 GHz Intel, is very close to my own (2.0 GHz Intel.) But, yes, to really to compare apples to apples, one must measure with fixed-depth and not with fixed-time.</p> <p>Regarding the base-line requirements to be able to run ChessV, I can honestly say I don't know what the bare minimum would be. But, I would not recommend running it at all on any machine with less than 256 megabyes of ram!!! This may sound like a lot, but 256 MB presently costs about $20. If memory serves me, the Atari ST had one-half of one megabyte of ram (512KB.) To try to implement something as computing-intensive and cutting-edge as a computer Ultima program on a computer that is twenty years old is like trying to climb mount Everest barefoot, with nothing but a Swiss Army Knife and duct-tape.</p> <p>I do not wish to discourage you from persuing your goal, as I think all people should develop software for their own fulfillment whether or not anyone else cares to run it. Rather, I seek to make you aware (in case you are not already) that ChessV was written for a machine which is about 4000 times faster, and has over 500 times the memory, and thus, the programming techniques which I use are not applicable at all to your situation.</p> <p>In your post, you describe selective move searching. This is a technique of reducing computing requirements by only considering some of the legal moves. ChessV does not use selective-search at all. This is a technique which was necessary in all computer Chess programs until the late 80's. However, now that computers are fast enough to study all possible moves and still reach a reasonable depth, all modern Chess programs study all moves, and are the better for it. You can reduce the size of your move-tree by skipping moves, but there are always, always situations where you overlook a superior moves to the moves you consider. If you can avoid selective-search, you should. NOTE: even with modern computers, selective search is still required in games like Shogi, which have a high branching-factor, and have no stable (quiescent) positions. ChessV will need to support selective-search if games such as Shogi and Chessgi are ever to be supported.</p>