5 ms·

In short: it plays far too well (~2500 ELO.) People think it originally played at a reasonable level and accidentally got more powerful as the seatback computer

In short: it plays far too well (~2500 ELO.) People think it originally played at a reasonable level and accidentally got more powerful as the seatback computers got more powerful; the same thing happened to the Mac chess app with the release of the M1.

xxs 9mo ago
>Mac chess app with the release of the M1. That would be exceptionally sloppy development. Phones have had more than enough power for long enough. 4 core Skylake (Mac 2016) would be well beyond human capabilities, if it's just raw power. The "thinking" (difficult) limit should be considered moves ahead, both depth and count. With a possible limit to time, if there is any time control.
- dominicrose 9mo ago
  I'm guessing the app got better precisely because there was a time limit.
- epolanski 9mo ago
  Even a computer from 20+ years ago will comfortably crush Carlsen, it really goes down to the specific engine used, chess engines have evolved a lot during the years. Carlsen knows how to play anti-bot chess where some engines may struggle, but that only applies to amateurish engines.
- s1gsegv 9mo ago
  You can code review it for yourself, it’s open source: https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/Chess/tree/Chess-570.1 https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/Chess/tree/Chess-... IIRC it does just set a time limit on thinking
- Ajedi32 9mo ago
  > 4 core Skylake (Mac 2016) would be well beyond human capabilities Not if the computer's time limit is set at 15 microseconds. It's not a question of whether the computers have "enough power"; just whether they are more powerful now than they were previously. And yes, obviously that's a very sloppy and error-prone way to implement a difficulty control.
anthk 9mo ago
Eh, no. A single Core Duo would be enough to challenge most masters with GNUChess or StockFish, no Apple fanboyism it's needed. Heck; even Nanochess was rough for a novice like me, and that on an n270 CPU.
- _diyar 9mo ago
  The idea is that there is a time limit for each move, and that the faster processors can do more work in the same time and thus have higher elo.
- kimixa 9mo ago
  I think the issue is that people limited compute time as a proxy for difficulty. In that case you'll hit issues on any device that performs significantly differently from that which it was tuned in. Though I am slightly amused by people using the apple chip as an example of "high performance" in a problem that scales very well with threading.
  - anthk 9mo ago
    Precisely a Core Duo and a custom build with -O3 -ffast-math (a Chess engine doesn't requiere anything further from integers) and -march=$YOUR_CPU_THERE can yield crazy performance speeds without needing an m4 and a great match even for masters.
dylan604 9mo ago
we used to stress test Macs by running the Chess app full tilt. Does it even make the fans run on AppleSi?
ghc 9mo ago
> the same thing happened to the Mac chess app with the release of the M1 I fired up Chess shortly after getting an M1 and got destroyed a bunch of times. I thought that I was just extremely out of practice and quit playing for years. I guess it's better to find out late rather than never.

xxs 9mo ago

>Mac chess app with the release of the M1. That would be exceptionally sloppy development. Phones have had more than enough power for long enough. 4 core Skylake (Mac 2016) would be well beyond human capabilities, if it's just raw power. The "thinking" (difficult) limit should be considered moves ahead, both depth and count. With a possible limit to time, if there is any time control.

dominicrose 9mo ago
I'm guessing the app got better precisely because there was a time limit.
epolanski 9mo ago
Even a computer from 20+ years ago will comfortably crush Carlsen, it really goes down to the specific engine used, chess engines have evolved a lot during the years. Carlsen knows how to play anti-bot chess where some engines may struggle, but that only applies to amateurish engines.
s1gsegv 9mo ago
You can code review it for yourself, it’s open source: https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/Chess/tree/Chess-570.1 https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/Chess/tree/Chess-... IIRC it does just set a time limit on thinking
Ajedi32 9mo ago
> 4 core Skylake (Mac 2016) would be well beyond human capabilities Not if the computer's time limit is set at 15 microseconds. It's not a question of whether the computers have "enough power"; just whether they are more powerful now than they were previously. And yes, obviously that's a very sloppy and error-prone way to implement a difficulty control.

anthk 9mo ago

Eh, no. A single Core Duo would be enough to challenge most masters with GNUChess or StockFish, no Apple fanboyism it's needed. Heck; even Nanochess was rough for a novice like me, and that on an n270 CPU.

_diyar 9mo ago
The idea is that there is a time limit for each move, and that the faster processors can do more work in the same time and thus have higher elo.
kimixa 9mo ago
I think the issue is that people limited compute time as a proxy for difficulty. In that case you'll hit issues on any device that performs significantly differently from that which it was tuned in. Though I am slightly amused by people using the apple chip as an example of "high performance" in a problem that scales very well with threading.
- anthk 9mo ago
  Precisely a Core Duo and a custom build with -O3 -ffast-math (a Chess engine doesn't requiere anything further from integers) and -march=$YOUR_CPU_THERE can yield crazy performance speeds without needing an m4 and a great match even for masters.

dylan604 9mo ago

we used to stress test Macs by running the Chess app full tilt. Does it even make the fans run on AppleSi?

ghc 9mo ago

> the same thing happened to the Mac chess app with the release of the M1 I fired up Chess shortly after getting an M1 and got destroyed a bunch of times. I thought that I was just extremely out of practice and quit playing for years. I guess it's better to find out late rather than never.