Marco Costalba [Sun, 8 Jan 2012 14:08:20 +0000 (15:08 +0100)]
Use CheckInfo to generate checks
It should help to avoid recalculating check squares
of sliding attackers for queen when already done for
bishops and rooks. Of course this helps when there are
bishop, rook and queen on the board !
Fixed also a subtle bug (use of same variable b in while
condition and in condition body) introduced recently by
revision d655147e8c that triggers
in case we have at least 2 non-pawn discovered check pieces.
This is very rare that's why didn't show in the node count
verification where we actually have a case of 2 dc pieces
in position 14, but one is a pawn.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sun, 8 Jan 2012 11:08:16 +0000 (12:08 +0100)]
Add castling to generation of checking moves
During generation of non-captures checks (in qsearch)
we don't consider castling moves that give check,
this patch includes also this rare case. Verified with
perft that all the non-capture checks are now generated.
There should be a very little slowdown due to the extra
work, but actually I failed to measure it. I don't expect
any ELO improvment, there is even no functional change on
the standard depth 12 search, it is just to have a correct
move generator.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 7 Jan 2012 10:17:10 +0000 (11:17 +0100)]
Retire OLD_LOCKS option
And make CRITICAL_SECTION locks the only option for Windows.
This guarantees backward compatibility with all the Windows
versions (even XP and older) and an hassle free experience
when compiling for Windows. Tests performed by Ingo and
reported on talkchess confirm there is no speed penalty
against the most modern SRW locks:
Marco Costalba [Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:28:15 +0000 (10:28 +0100)]
Extra time management safety
Further increase safety against time losses. After this
change (tested on LittleBlitzer and cutechess) I had no
more time losses at 2" and 1"+0.02 TC both on Windows
and Linux on more than 10000 games.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:13:29 +0000 (21:13 +0100)]
Avoid a race at thread creation
Before creating main thread we set its do_sleep flag to true,
then thread is created and it will go to sleep in main_loop()
after resetting do_sleep.
But if after the setting of do_sleep and before its resetting
the UI thread calls start_thinking() it will not wait on:
if (!asyncMode)
while (!main.do_sleep)
cond_wait(&sleepCond, &main.sleepLock);
as it should but will immediately return before the main thread has
started the search. This very rare race show itself during bench,
when the first position is erroneusly skipped so that bench node count
results of 5309038 instead of the correct 5457475.
The patch is somewhat tricky, but is simple and it works!
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Mon, 2 Jan 2012 13:37:44 +0000 (14:37 +0100)]
Revert cond_signal() fix
It seems it yields to missing wake-up events with the
result of SF loosing on time as reported by many people.
So revert the patch and use a more robust approach: assume
there can be spurious wake ups events and make the code to
work also in those cases.
While debugging I found that WaitForSingleObject() had wrong
parameter 0 instead of INFINITE yielding to a crash while
exiting under Windows, strangely unnoticed til now.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:52:14 +0000 (17:52 +0100)]
Simplify Book APIs
Retire open(), close() and name() from public visibility
and greately simplify the code. It is amazing how much
can be squeezed out of an already mature code !
No functional change
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:27:14 +0000 (15:27 +0100)]
Fix cond_signal() semantics when using OLD_LOCKS
In Windows when OLD_LOCKS is defined we use SetEvent() to mimic
the semantic of the POSIX pthread_cond_signal().
Unfortunatly there is not a direct mapping because with SetEvent()
the state of an event object remains signaled until it is set
explicitly to the nonsignaled state or until a single waiting thread
has been released. Instead in case of pthread_cond_signal(), if there
are no waiting threads it has no effect. What we may want is something
like PulseEvent() instead of SetEvent(). Unfortunatly it is documented
by Mcrosoft as 'unreliable' due to spurious wakes up that could
filter out the signal resetting. So we opt to reset manually any
pending signaled state before to go to sleep.
This fixes the strange misbehaves during 'stockfish bench'
when using OLD_LOCKS under Windows.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:30:26 +0000 (11:30 +0100)]
Retire run-time detection of hardware POPCNT
It was meant to build a single binary optimized
for any kind of CPU: with and without hardware POPCNT.
This is a nice idea but in practice was never used, or
people builds binary with popcnt enabled or not, mainly
according to their type of CPU. And it was also never
used in the official Jim's builds where, in case, would
be easier for a number of reasons, do build two different
versions: with and without SEE42 support.
So retire this feature and simplify the code.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:55:09 +0000 (09:55 +0100)]
Wait for main thread to finish before to exit
Currently after a 'quit' command UI thread raises stop
signal, exits from uci_loop() and calls Threads.exit()
while the search threads are still active.
In Threads.exit() main thread is asked to terminate, but
if it is parked in idle_loop() it will exit and free its
resources (in particular the shared Movepicker object) while
sibling slaves are still active and this leads to a crash.
The fix is to let the UI thread always wait for main thread
to finish the search before to return from uci_loop().
Found by Valgrind when running with 8 threads.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:22:09 +0000 (13:22 +0100)]
Better document how mate scores are stored in TT
During the search we score a mate as "plies to mate
from the root" to compare in an homogeneous way the
values returned by different sub-trees. However we
store in TT a mate score as "plies to mate from the
current position" the let the TT value remain valid
across the game.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:00:44 +0000 (01:00 +0100)]
Assert enhancements in search
Add the check that alpha < beta - 1 if and only if PvNode is true.
The current code would not flag PvNode and alpha == beta - 1. In
other words, the || is not an exclusive OR!.
Also sync assert conditions of search() and qsearch()
Suggested by Rein Halbersma.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Thu, 8 Dec 2011 16:54:37 +0000 (17:54 +0100)]
Don't update killers for evasions
We don't use killers to order evasions, so it
seems natural do not consider an evasion cut-off
move as a possible killer. Test shows almost no
change, as it should be becuase this is a really
tiny change, but neverthless seems the correct
thing to do.
After 11893 games
Mod vs Orig 1773 - 1696 - 8424 ELO +2 (+-3.4)
Idea from Critter.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:48:59 +0000 (20:48 +0100)]
Use ADL to skip std:: qualifier
Take advantage of argument-dependent lookup (ADL) to
avoid specifying std:: qualifier in some STL functions.
When a function argument refers to a namespace (in this
case std) then the compiler will search the unqualified
function in that namespace too.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Thu, 15 Dec 2011 06:25:45 +0000 (07:25 +0100)]
Fix book move with searchmoves compatibility
Do not return the book move if is not among the
RootMoves,in particular if we have been asked to
search on a move subset with "searchmoves" then
return book move only if it is among this subset.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:42:16 +0000 (11:42 +0100)]
Fix another crash triggered by previous patch
It is ok to redirect st pointer to startState, but the latter
should be updated with the content pointed by the st of the
original position. The bug is hidden when startState and *st
are the same as is the case of searching from start position,
but as soon as moves are made (as is the case when splitting)
the bug leads to a crash.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:07:16 +0000 (10:07 +0100)]
Fix a crash when quitting while searching
The Position object used by UI thread is a local variable in
uci_loop(), so after receiving "quit" command the function
returns and the position is freed from the stack.
This should not be a problem becuase in start_thinking() we copy
the position to RootPosition that is the one used by main search
thread. Unfortunatly we blindly copy also StateInfo pointer that
still points to the startState struct inside UI position. So the
pointer becomes stale as soon as UI thread leaves uci_loop() and
because this happens while main search thread is still recovering
after the 'stop' signal we have a crash.
The fix is to update the pointer to the correct startState after
the copy.
Found with Valgrind.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:14:13 +0000 (19:14 +0100)]
Prune silly comments in search()
Comments should be informative but not pedantic / obvious.
The only exception is the function description where we
indulge a bit on the "chatty" side, but has always been like
this since Glaurung times, so we continue with this tradition.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Wed, 7 Dec 2011 06:45:44 +0000 (07:45 +0100)]
Retire all extensions (but checks) for non-PV nodes
It seems we don't have any added value. Note that the
moves that were used to be extended are still flagged
as dangerous so to avoid at least pruning them.
After 9555 games
Mod vs Orig 1562 - 1540 - 6453 ELO +0 (+- 4)
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 3 Dec 2011 09:54:44 +0000 (10:54 +0100)]
Don't disable IO buffering at startup
It was never clear to me why we needed this trick, and now
that we rely only on C++ std::getline() and std::cout for
input / output it is even more a mistery what this code does.
So disable it and wait to see if someone screams ;-)
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:07:17 +0000 (17:07 +0100)]
Detach search arguments from UI thread
Detach from the UI thread the input arguments used by
the search threads so that the UI thread is able to receive
and process any command sent by the GUI while other threads
keep searching.
With this patch there is no more need to block the UI
thread after a "stop", so it is a more reliable and
robust solution than the previous patch.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:16:23 +0000 (12:16 +0100)]
After a "stop" do not read new input until search finishes
Unfortunatly xboard sends immediately the new position to
search after sending "stop" when we have a ponder miss.
Becuase main thread position is not copied but is referenced
directly from root position and the latter is modified by
the "position.." UCI command we end up with the working position
that changes under our feet while the search is still recovering
after the "stop" and this causes a crash.
This happens only with the (broken) xboard, native UCI does not
have this problem.
Reported by otello1984
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:07:29 +0000 (20:07 +0100)]
Rewrite async I/O
Use the starting thread to wait for GUI input and instead use
the other threads to search. The consequence is that now think()
is alwasy started on a differnt thread than the caller that
returns immediately waiting for input. This reformat greatly
simplifies the code and is more in line with the common way
to implement this feature.
As a side effect now we don't need anymore Makefile tricks
with sleep() to allow profile builds.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:30:32 +0000 (11:30 +0100)]
Don't check for early stop when StopOnPonderhit is set
If we are pondering we will stop the search only when
GUI sends "ponderhit" or "stop" commands or when we reach
maximum depth. In all the other cases we continue to search
so there is no need to verify for available time.
Also better clarify why wait_for_stop_or_ponderhit() before
to exit in some cases.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 8 Oct 2011 12:01:18 +0000 (13:01 +0100)]
Rewrite early stop logic
In the "easy move" paradigm we verify if the best move has
ever changed over a good number of iterations and if the
biggest part of the searched nodes are consumed on it.
This is a kind of hacky ad indirect heuristic to deduce
if one move is much better than others.
Rewrite the early stop condition to verify directly if one
move is much better than others performing an exclusion
search.
Idea to use exclusion search for time management if form Critter.
After 12245 games at 30"+0.1
Mod vs Orig 1776 - 1775 - 8694 ELO +0 (+-3.4)
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:10:01 +0000 (10:10 +0100)]
Rewrite link time optimization in Makefile
Instead of binding link time optimization to the choice of
popcount support, do the right thing and add -flto option
when gcc 4.5 or later is detected.
Although it should be supported also under mingw, it happens
that it doesn't, at least on my 4.6.1 due to some known bugs.
Thanks to Mike for helping me with this patch.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:20:41 +0000 (09:20 +0100)]
Fix regression: engine hangs while pondering
After a "stop" due to a ponder miss Xboard sends
immediately the new position to search, without
waiting for engine to effectively stop the search.
It is not clear if this is a GUI bug (as I suspect)
or allowed behaviour, but because it won't be fixed
anyway workaround this issue making listener thread
to switch to in-sync mode as soon as a "stop" command
is received.
Thanks to Mike Whiteley for reporting this.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Wed, 9 Nov 2011 04:03:46 +0000 (05:03 +0100)]
Another fix to profile-build on gcc 4.6
Oliver reports profile builds error with new gcc 4.6, he says:
"We need to add -lgov with profile-generate AND profile-use.
So it has to be added to the second stage of building too.
The problem occurred first with the introduction of gcc4.6 and
I think this is because the previous version did find the gcov
library automatically. gcc4.6 needs more precise options and
does less guesses. I have seen it in debian, Ubuntu and also with
mingw on Windows. And all use gcc4.6."
This patch fixes the issue.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba [Tue, 8 Nov 2011 06:34:44 +0000 (07:34 +0100)]
Fix profile-build
After async I/O patches 'bench' changed behaviour and now waits for
input at the end of the test run. This is due to listener thread stay
blocked on std::getline() even after test run is finished, as soon as
we feed something the thread unblocks and then quickly exits.
This is not a big problem, but has the bad side effect of breaking
profile builds that hang forever at the end of the test run.
The tricky workaround is to create a pipe that connects to stockfish
input and then, when test run is finished, breaking the pipe: this
makes std::getline() immediately return.
So this patch adds a 'sleep 10' piped into 'stockfish bench' test run
command. After 10 seconds sleep ends, the pipe breaks and 'bench'
finishes as usual.
Thanks to Oliver Korff for reporting the issue, and to Mike Whiteley
for having co-authored this solution.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
projects / stockfish / log