New engine: Mida

[Jack03]

Hello, I have an engine that I'd like to be on the CCRL. It's rating is around 2200 for now. I wrote an email to the admins through this platform, but I recieved no answer, and I hope this reaches out. Thanks in advance

[Gabor Szots]

Hello, I have an engine that I'd like to be on the CCRL. It's rating is around 2200 for now. I wrote an email to the admins through this platform, but I recieved no answer, and I hope this reaches out. Thanks in advance

Just publish its URL, your name and country (not obligatory if you'd prefer to be anonymous). Exes for various platforms would be welcomed, with 64-bit Windows exes obligatory (we all have Windows machines). It would be nice if you could provide some background information too (origin, development stages, future plans) and sources. And of course if something else is required to run it, e.g. command line parameters (if WB).
And version information in the exe name and engine id (UCI) would make it easier for testers (to avoid confusion with versions).

[Jack03]

You can find everything here https://github.com/GiacomoPorpiglia/Mida . For now I only have the .exe for windows in the bin folder.
My name is Giacomo Porpiglia, I'm from Italy.
Some information about the engine and its features are in the README file. The engine works with standard UCI commands, there shouldn't be any problems (I've tested it in Arena and it works fine). Please let me know if there are any problems.
Also, I have 2 questions for the future:
- How long does it take for the engine to be put on the CCRL and play against other engines?
- If in the future I have a new version of the engine, do I use this same procedure to send it to you?
Thank you for your time

[Gabor Szots]

You can find everything here https://github.com/GiacomoPorpiglia/Mida . For now I only have the .exe for windows in the bin folder.
My name is Giacomo Porpiglia, I'm from Italy.
Some information about the engine and its features are in the README file. The engine works with standard UCI commands, there shouldn't be any problems (I've tested it in Arena and it works fine). Please let me know if there are any problems.
Also, I have 2 questions for the future:
- How long does it take for the engine to be put on the CCRL and play against other engines?
- If in the future I have a new version of the engine, do I use this same procedure to send it to you?
Thank you for your time

Hi Giacomo,

I suggest to put the versions you'd like to be tested in 'Releases'. Some people, including myself, follow news published there, and I have always had the opinion that if an author does not put his engine there that means he does not want it to be tested.

Regarding your questions:
- It depends on various factors. Who has interest, who has CPU time, who is at home... I myself will start a tournament right now but I can't promise I will do the same with all future versions.
- You don't have to do anything special. Many people will follow you and someone will announce if a new version is released (I have just subscribed for new releases at your github page). Of course the best is if you announce it yourself, possibly at the CCC forum (Talkchess).

Gabor

PS. I have just downloaded it and I can see it does not display a version. That has to be changed unless you don't want to release more versions. How are we to distinguish between versions otherwise?

PS2. I see you'd like it to be tested for the 40/40 (now 40/15) list. I test almost exclusively for the blitz list so I can't tell when in will be tested for the 'slow' list.

[Jack03]

Thank you for your rapid responses.
I have now published the code in Releases on the github page, and also the version should be ok now.
Again, let me know if anything is wrong.
About the blitz, any format would be fine, I just want to see how it performs for now, and I'm not interested in any specific time control.
Thanks again for all the explanations, for me it's a new thing, so sorry if my questions are obvious to you; I'll try to be a fast learner

[Gabor Szots]

Thank you for your rapid responses.
I have now published the code in Releases on the github page, and also the version should be ok now.
Again, let me know if anything is wrong.
About the blitz, any format would be fine, I just want to see how it performs for now, and I'm not interested in any specific time control.
Thanks again for all the explanations, for me it's a new thing, so sorry if my questions are obvious to you; I'll try to be a fast learner

I have downloaded the source and tried to compile it but I got lots of error messages, e.g.
Board.h:51:5: error: 'movesList' does not name a type
51 | movesList totalMoves;

Or:
Board.cpp: In member function 'void Board::reset()':
Board.cpp:12:5: error: 'repetition_index' was not declared in this scope
12 | repetition_index = 0;
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Board.cpp:14:5: error: 'plyGameCounter' was not declared in this scope
14 | plyGameCounter = 0;
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Board.cpp:15:5: error: 'resetFiftyMoveTable' was not declared in this scope
15 | resetFiftyMoveTable();
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Board.cpp: In member function 'void Board::loadFenPosition(std::string)':
Board.cpp:37:31: error: 'splitString' was not declared in this scope
37 | vector<string> splitted = splitString(fen, (char)' ');

etc.

As I am not a programmer I have no idea what to do with that. Not that it is not very important as long as you also include exes. I can see you have included one in the bin folder but not everyone will find it so I suggest you put it to Assets separately as well.

[Jack03]

I don't know about the errors you are getting, it should compile fine with the command
g++ mida_engine.cpp -w -O2 -o bin/mida_engine_v1.0.exe
Anyway, I have now added the executable to the assets as well. Let me know if this command for compiling fixes the issue, and if the engine is now ready to be tested. Again, thanks in advance

[Gabor Szots]

I don't know about the errors you are getting, it should compile fine with the command
g++ mida_engine.cpp -w -O2 -o bin/mida_engine_v1.0.exe
Anyway, I have now added the executable to the assets as well. Let me know if this command for compiling fixes the issue, and if the engine is now ready to be tested. Again, thanks in advance

Your command line is fine. Mine is: g++ *.cpp -O3 -march=native -oMida_1.0-x64-SzG.exe. I can see some differences but I can't see why mine is bad, I use this line for almost all engines.

Your exe worked already and I have a tournament running.

[Jack03]

Don't know about why that doesn't work. Also, I see you use optimization -O3 for the other engines, and you can use that with mine, too in the future (just -O3 instead of -O2 in the command I wrote). I will also upload the -O3 exe in the github page.
Thanks a lot for everything, apprecicate it

[Gabor Szots]

Don't know about why that doesn't work. Also, I see you use optimization -O3 for the other engines, and you can use that with mine, too in the future (just -O3 instead of -O2 in the command I wrote). I will also upload the -O3 exe in the github page.
Thanks a lot for everything, apprecicate it

The problem is, apparently, *.cpp instead of mida_engine.cpp.

[Jack03]

yeah it probably is, because the board.cpp file can't compile on its own. Hope that's not too much of a problem. If it is, I can easily put it in a folder so that it doesn't get compiled when running that command.

Edit: I've just done so, and now your command works, too.