Tablebase Cache Size

[Norm Pruitt]

I play engine chess and have the following question about what EGTB cache size to use.
1. Is the tablebases cached or is an index file cached?
2. If the index file is cached, what size is the index file?
3. If an index file exist, what is its name?
4. I have used 256MB cache for years, am I wasting RAM?

Thanks for any comments
Norm

[Pachnes]

I play engine chess and have the following question about what EGTB cache size to use.
1. Is the tablebases cached or is an index file cached?
2. If the index file is cached, what size is the index file?
3. If an index file exist, what is its name?
4. I have used 256MB cache for years, am I wasting RAM?

Thanks for any comments
Norm

Hi Norm,

on machines with 512 MB RAM i use a Tablebasecache of 16 MB, on machines with RAM > 1 GB i set Tablebasecache to 32 MB. Windows does have a good file caching system itself and when you configure a high Tablebasecache you cache some things twice.

Better is to split the Tablebase files to as many physical harddisks as possible. The bottleneck is not the caching, it is the IO.

Some intelligent splitting is useful too.
First idea: Split black and white tablebases to different physical harddisks.

Second idea:
Do not split TB33 and TB42 to different drives, as TB33 can never change to a TB42 position and vice versa.