Marco Costalba [Wed, 23 Dec 2015 09:07:54 +0000 (10:07 +0100)]
Move some globals into main thread scope
Make it explicit that those variables are not globals, but
are used only by main thread. I think it is a sensible
clarification because easy move is already tricky enough
and current patch makes the involved actors explicit.
Alain SAVARD [Tue, 22 Dec 2015 10:00:04 +0000 (10:00 +0000)]
New mobility bonus
Tuned the global mobility factor for each piece, as well as some +- delta,
The master mobility factor was {266,334} and tuning gave
{267, 362} +S(-2,-2) for the Knight
{249, 328} +S( 0,-2) for the Bishop
{298, 353} +S(1,1) for the Rook
{265, 358} +S(2,-1) for the Queen
mstembera [Mon, 14 Dec 2015 18:34:43 +0000 (18:34 +0000)]
Fix easy move bug in SMP mode
Fix a bug where we could stop the search after only 10% of time used due to a matching easy move but later switch to a different move that was never pre-screened as easy due to SMP thread select.
Leonid Pechenik [Wed, 9 Dec 2015 07:07:34 +0000 (02:07 -0500)]
Simplify time management and fix 'ponder on' bug
Simplify time management code by removing hard stops for unchanging first root moves.
Search is now stopped earlier at the end iteration if it did not have fail-lows at root.
This simplification also fixes pondering bug. Ponder flag was true by default
and cutechess-cli doesn't change it to false even though no pondering is possible.
Fix the issue by setting the default value of 'Ponder' flag to false.
mstembera [Mon, 16 Nov 2015 23:39:11 +0000 (15:39 -0800)]
Clean up RootMove less operator
This is used by std::stable_sort() to sort moves from highest score to lowest score.
1) The comment is incorrect since highest to lowest means descending.
2) It's more natural to implement a less operator using another less operator rather than a greater operator.
lucasart [Sat, 21 Nov 2015 07:23:53 +0000 (23:23 -0800)]
Fix TT comment and static_assert()
Comment is based on a misunderstanding of what unaligned memory access is. Here
is an article that explains it very clearly:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/unaligned-memory-access.txt
No matter how we define TTEntry or TTCluster, there will never be any unaligned
memory access. This is because the complier knows the alignment rules, and does
the necessary adjustments to make sure unaligned memory access does not occur.
The issue being adressed here has nothing to do with unaligned memory access. It
is about cache performance. In order to achieve best cache performance:
- we prefetch the cacheline as soon as possible.
- we ensure that TT clusters do not spread across two cachelines. If they did,
we would need to prefetch 2 cachelines, which could hurt cache performance.
Therefore the true conditions to achieve this are:
1/ start adress of TT is cache line aligned. void TranspositionTable::resize()
enforces this.
2/ TT cluster size should *divide* the cache line size. Currently, we pack 2
clusters per cache lines. It used to be 1 before "TT sardines". Does not matter
what the ratio is, all we want is to fit an integer number of clusters per cache
line.
Marco Costalba [Sat, 21 Nov 2015 06:48:50 +0000 (07:48 +0100)]
Rewrite how threads are spawned
Instead of creating a running std::thread and
returning, wait in Thread c'tor that the native
thread of execution goes to sleep in idle_loop().
In this way we can simplify how search is started,
because when main thread is idle we are sure also
all other threads will be idle, in any case, even
at thread creation and startup.
After lazy smp went in, we can simpify and rewrite
a lot of logic that is now no more needed. This is
hopefully the final big cleanup.
Tested for no regression at 5+0.1 with 3 threads:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-5.00,0.00]
Total: 17411 W: 3248 L: 3198 D: 10965
Marco Costalba [Mon, 9 Nov 2015 08:50:02 +0000 (09:50 +0100)]
Fix broken UCI 'wait for stop'
When we reach the maximum depth, we can finish the
search without a raise of Signals.stop. However, if
we are pondering or in an infinite search, the UCI
protocol states that we shouldn't print the best move
before the GUI sends a "stop" or "ponderhit" command.
It was broken by lazy smp. Fix it by moving the stopping
of the threads after waiting for GUI.
Marco Costalba [Tue, 3 Nov 2015 10:15:14 +0000 (11:15 +0100)]
Get rid of timer thread
Unfortunately std::condition_variable::wait_for()
is not accurate in general case and the timer thread
can wake up also after tens or even hundreds of
millisecs after time has elapsded. CPU load, process
priorities, number of concurrent threads, even from
other processes, will have effect upon it.
Even official documentation says: "This function may
block for longer than timeout_duration due to scheduling
or resource contention delays."
So retire timer and use a polling scheme based on a
local thread counter that counts search() calls and
a small trick to keep polling frequency constant,
independently from the number of threads.
Tested for no regression at very fast TC 2+0.05 th 7:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 32969 W: 6720 L: 6620 D: 19629
Raising a pull request early as 24 Thread tests are very expensive and
this is clearly a positive gain at high thread counts and high time
controls. The change is a small parameter tweak with no additional
logic.
lucasart [Sat, 24 Oct 2015 21:50:51 +0000 (22:50 +0100)]
Use atomics instead of volatile
Rely on well defined behaviour for message passing, instead of volatile. Three
versions have been tested, to make sure this wouldn't cause a slowdown on any
platform.
v1: Sequentially consistent atomics
No mesurable regression, despite the extra memory barriers on x86. Even with 15
threads and extreme time pressure, both acting as a magnifying glass:
Marco Costalba [Thu, 22 Oct 2015 04:57:06 +0000 (06:57 +0200)]
Update authors
Fishtest is a key factor of SF success.
Thanks to Fishtest we have not only greately
improved ELO but, even more important, we
have enabled a kind of joint development and
testing that it is the herat of on open
source project like SF.
Open sourcing is not just about open code, it is
about commuity development. In case of a chess engine
this has never been possible before due to missing
a strong and strict testing environment that allows
many people to contribute in a safe and coordinate way.
Fishtest is a new way of developing chess engines,
something that has never exsisted before.
mbootsector [Tue, 6 Oct 2015 06:15:17 +0000 (08:15 +0200)]
Lazy SMP
Start all threads searching on root position and
use only the shared TT table as synching scheme.
It seems this scheme scales better than YBWC for
high number of threads.
Verified for nor regression at STC 3 threads
LLR: -2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 40232 W: 6908 L: 7130 D: 26194
Verified for nor regression at LTC 3 threads
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 28186 W: 3908 L: 3798 D: 20480
Verified for nor regression at STC 7 threads
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 3607 W: 674 L: 526 D: 2407
Verified for nor regression at LTC 7 threads
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 4235 W: 671 L: 528 D: 3036
Tested with fixed games at LTC with 20 threads
ELO: 44.75 +-7.6 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 2069 W: 407 L: 142 D: 1520
Tested with fixed games at XLTC (120secs) with 20 threads
ELO: 28.01 +-6.7 (95%) LOS: 100.0%
Total: 2275 W: 349 L: 166 D: 1760
Original patch of mbootsector, with additional work
from Ivan Ivec (log formula), Joerg Oster (id loop
simplification) and Marco Costalba (assorted formatting
and rework).
VoyagerOne [Mon, 12 Oct 2015 21:00:54 +0000 (14:00 -0700)]
Combination of two ideas:
Apply bonus for the prior CMH that caused a fail low.
Balance Stats: CMH and History bonuses are updated differently.
This eliminates the "fudge" factor weight when scoring moves. Also
eliminated discontinuity in the gravity history stat formula. (i.e. stat
scores will no longer inverse when depth exceeds 22)
Marco Costalba [Sun, 27 Sep 2015 08:53:39 +0000 (10:53 +0200)]
Run PVS-STUDIO analyzer
Fix issues after a run of PVS-STUDIO analyzer.
Mainly false positives but warnings are anyhow
useful to point out not very readable code.
Noteworthy is the memset() one, where PVS prefers ss-2
instead of stack. This is because memeset() could
be optimized away by the compiler when using 'stack',
due to stack being a local variable no more used after
memset. This should normally not happen, but when
it happens it leads to very sublte and difficult
to find bug, so better to be safe than sorry.
Louis Zulli reported that Stockfish suffers from very occasional hangs with his 20 cores machine.
Careful SMP debugging revealed that this was caused by "a ghost split point slave", where thread
was marked as a split point slave, but wasn't actually working on it.
The only logical explanation for this was double booking, where due to SMP race, the same thread
is booked for two different split points simultaneously.
Due to very intermittent nature of the problem, we can't say exactly how this happens.
The current handling of Thread specific variables is risky though. Volatile variables are in some
cases changed without spinlock being hold. In this case standard doesn't give us any kind of
guarantees about how the updated values are propagated to other threads.
We resolve the situation by enforcing very strict locking rules:
- Values for key thread variables (splitPointsSize, activeSplitPoint, searching)
can only be changed when the thread specific spinlock is held.
- Structural changes for splitPoints[] are only allowed when the thread specific spinlock is held.
- Thread booking decisions (per split point) can only be done when the thread specific spinlock is held.
With these changes hangs didn't occur anymore during 2 days torture testing on Zulli's machine.
We probably have a slight performance penalty in SMP mode due to more locking.
v = value without ep capture being considered
v1 = value of the ep capture
The correct logic is:
if without e.p. capture we are losing, and the value of e.p is either draw, or win or "loss, but 50 move rule saves us", then we should use the value of ep capture.
lucasart [Tue, 25 Aug 2015 11:46:37 +0000 (19:46 +0800)]
Prune castling moves
Align the behaviour with reductions. Initially castling moves had to be
treated differently, because the SEE did not handle them correctly. But now it
does.
Marco Costalba [Tue, 4 Aug 2015 07:00:52 +0000 (09:00 +0200)]
Rename Position::list
Use Position::square and Position::squares instead.
This allow us to remove king_square(), simplify
endgames and to have more naming uniformity.
Moreover, this is a prerequisite step in case
in the future we decide to retire piece lists
altoghter and use pop_lsb() to loop across
pieces and serialize the moves. In this way
we just need to change definition of Position::square
to something like:
A parameter tweak test showed that changing b) for "on rank 3 and above"
does not work
LLR: -2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 5233 W: 937 L: 1077 D: 3219
Finally, a small rewrite, and we have this version
Include squares occupied by some pawns in the MobilityArea which are
a) not blocked
b) on rank 4 and above
Marco Costalba [Sun, 28 Jun 2015 08:24:10 +0000 (10:24 +0200)]
Correctly check for no-makefile compile
Under Windows with MSVC we use the IDE to compile,
in this case we infer some compiler flags usually
set by Makefile.
The condition to check this was wrong, namely when compiling
with mingw under Windows 64 bit we always set IS_64BIT and
USE_BSFQ even if compiled with ARCH=x86-32 (this is how I
found it).
projects / stockfish / log