New Engine: Avalanche

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi, I'm back after around 1.5 months of coding!
Since v0.2.2, I felt the code is too messy and impractical, so I erased most files and started a rewrite from scratch.
It is now released as v1.0.0!

The release and information is here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.0.0
The binaries are here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... e/binaries

I am expecting a ~130 ELO gain and v1.0.0 be around 2760 ELO.
It would be awesome if you can test this new version. And please let me know if you find any issue running the engine, as I have not tested it on a windows machine.
Thank you!

The new binary for win-64 does not work anymore on my old hardware with Win7-64 Ultimate.
(core2 = yorkfield)

Code: Select all

---------------------------
Avalanche_x86_64_windows_1.0.0.exe - Entry Point Not Found
---------------------------
The procedure entry point RtlWaitOnAddress could not be located in the dynamic link library ntdll.dll. 
---------------------------

Thank you for telling me. I will try to get on a windows laptop ASAP and debug it I’ll reply when I figure this out. Sorry about that

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi, I'm back after around 1.5 months of coding!
Since v0.2.2, I felt the code is too messy and impractical, so I erased most files and started a rewrite from scratch.
It is now released as v1.0.0!

The release and information is here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.0.0
The binaries are here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... e/binaries

I am expecting a ~130 ELO gain and v1.0.0 be around 2760 ELO.
It would be awesome if you can test this new version. And please let me know if you find any issue running the engine, as I have not tested it on a windows machine.
Thank you!

The new binary for win-64 does not work anymore on my old hardware with Win7-64 Ultimate.
(core2 = yorkfield)

Code: Select all

---------------------------
Avalanche_x86_64_windows_1.0.0.exe - Entry Point Not Found
---------------------------
The procedure entry point RtlWaitOnAddress could not be located in the dynamic link library ntdll.dll. 
---------------------------

Thank you for telling me. I will try to get on a windows laptop ASAP and debug it I’ll reply when I figure this out. Sorry about that

Update: The binary worked on my windows 11 machine with i5 core, and I don't own a windows 7. Though I will still try to fix it... Maybe I accidentally included a cpu instruction that isn't available on your CPU? I'll try to compile a version that doesn't use any simd.

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi all,
I removed the new threading system and falls back to the exact same interface code I used in v0.2.2.
https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... c/binaries
I hope it fixes both the DLL issue and the timeout issue.
Thanks!

[Guenther]

Hi all,
I removed the new threading system and falls back to the exact same interface code I used in v0.2.2.
https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... c/binaries
I hope it fixes both the DLL issue and the timeout issue.
Thanks!

Sorry, but it still shows the same problem.
BTW someone else reported the same too at talkchess, but he did not mention his hardware or OS specs.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 90#p927772

May be you updated your compiler?

[Yinuo Huang]

Hmm. It looks like Graham Banks ran it fine… but someone also told me the same issue on lichess. I’ll investigate further. Thanks!

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi all,
I removed the new threading system and falls back to the exact same interface code I used in v0.2.2.
https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... c/binaries
I hope it fixes both the DLL issue and the timeout issue.
Thanks!

Sorry, but it still shows the same problem.
BTW someone else reported the same too at talkchess, but he did not mention his hardware or OS specs.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 90#p927772

May be you updated your compiler?

Hi,
I just reached out to the zig community. Apparently windows 7 isn't officially tested/supported for the current Zig compiler (the min version is windows 8.1), so random bugs may occur.
It also seem like it's a problem with threading as the only time the RtlWaitOnAddress thing is called is here:https://github.com/ziglang/zig/blob/mas ... x.zig#L136

It would be great if you have a windows 10+ to try to test it, but if it's not available, it's totally fine and I'll notify when this is fixed.
Sorry about that!

[Ray]

People still use Wndows 7 ??

Frankly if I were you I would not expend any effort to support that. Unfortunately when you use old hardware and old operating systems you have to expect that over time some newer software might not work.

[Yinuo Huang]

People still use Wndows 7 ??

Frankly if I were you I would not expend any effort to support that. Unfortunately when you use old hardware and old operating systems you have to expect that over time some newer software might not work.

This is what the Zig community also told me… They dropped win7 support because Microsoft dropped it in 2020. I guess I won’t be worrying about it anymore Thanks for the advice

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi All,
I'm happy to release what I've accomplished during the past 40 days, v1.1.0 of Avalanche.
v1.1.0 is ~112 ELO stronger than 1.0.0. It is expected to be around 2850 ELO.

See more information as well as the binaries here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.1.0

Thanks!

[bastiball]

Hi All,
I'm happy to release what I've accomplished during the past 40 days, v1.1.0 of Avalanche.
v1.1.0 is ~112 ELO stronger than 1.0.0. It is expected to be around 2850 ELO.

See more information as well as the binaries here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.1.0

Thanks!

I'm currently testing 8CPU and focusing more on 8CPU, Also I'll invite this engine to the Mini-TCEC Season 2 if it's okay to you. I think Gabor will test this version.

[Gabor Szots]

I think Gabor will test this version.

He's already doing it.

[bastiball]

I think Gabor will test this version.

He's already doing it.

Yeah, Just saw it, earlier.

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi All,
I'm happy to release what I've accomplished during the past 40 days, v1.1.0 of Avalanche.
v1.1.0 is ~112 ELO stronger than 1.0.0. It is expected to be around 2850 ELO.

See more information as well as the binaries here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.1.0

Thanks!

I'm currently testing 8CPU and focusing more on 8CPU, Also I'll invite this engine to the Mini-TCEC Season 2 if it's okay to you. I think Gabor will test this version.

Sure no problem, thanks for the invite offer

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi everyone!
I'm glad to release v1.2.0, after about a month of work. I'm estimating around [2910, 2960] elo on CCRL. It is around 110 elo stronger than v1.1.0.
All the details and binaries are here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.2.0

Thanks so much for the testing!

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi all,
I am sorry for being a week late on my "monthly" release.

I just released version 1.3.0 of my Avalanche Chess Engine. I'm expecting it to be ~66 elo higher, so a new rating of around [3090, 3130].

More info and binaries here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.3.0

Thank you!

By the way, I saw the division 4 amateur series has already started. I'm sorry for being late with the release... It would be cool if it's not too late to use v1.3.0 for that tournament, but it's fine if Avalanche has to finish the tournament with v1.2.0.

This is likely to be my second-to-last release -- I hope to finish move ordering and time management in version 2.0.0. I'll also add multi-thread search for 4CPU testing. Then, I will move on to my other hobby projects Thank you so much for all the testing and support! I could never imagine my engine to be on the top 100 list when I started this project.

[Graham Banks]

I'll put Avalanche 1.3.0 in D4 shortly.

[bastiball]

Hi all,
I am sorry for being a week late on my "monthly" release.

I just released version 1.3.0 of my Avalanche Chess Engine. I'm expecting it to be ~66 elo higher, so a new rating of around [3090, 3130].

More info and binaries here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.3.0

Thank you!

By the way, I saw the division 4 amateur series has already started. I'm sorry for being late with the release... It would be cool if it's not too late to use v1.3.0 for that tournament, but it's fine if Avalanche has to finish the tournament with v1.2.0.

This is likely to be my second-to-last release -- I hope to finish move ordering and time management in version 2.0.0. I'll also add multi-thread search for 4CPU testing. Then, I will move on to my other hobby projects Thank you so much for all the testing and support! I could never imagine my engine to be on the top 100 list when I started this project.

Any chances implementing FRC?

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi all,
I am sorry for being a week late on my "monthly" release.

I just released version 1.3.0 of my Avalanche Chess Engine. I'm expecting it to be ~66 elo higher, so a new rating of around [3090, 3130].

More info and binaries here: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.3.0

Thank you!

By the way, I saw the division 4 amateur series has already started. I'm sorry for being late with the release... It would be cool if it's not too late to use v1.3.0 for that tournament, but it's fine if Avalanche has to finish the tournament with v1.2.0.

This is likely to be my second-to-last release -- I hope to finish move ordering and time management in version 2.0.0. I'll also add multi-thread search for 4CPU testing. Then, I will move on to my other hobby projects Thank you so much for all the testing and support! I could never imagine my engine to be on the top 100 list when I started this project.

Any chances implementing FRC?

I don’t know how much work is needed to implement FRC from scratch since I don’t use a library for move generation. The extra castling rules seems to break a lot of my movegen logic…
So I’ll say… maybe, but probably not, sorry :p

[Yinuo Huang]

Something is wrong with v1.3.0’s playing strength… It seems to be missing some moves due to bad move ordering… I won’t be surprised if v1.3.0 performs worse than 1.2.0 in long games then…
I take my words back — I might release a v1.4.0 just fix the issues and 2.0.0 will be only threading support

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi all,
I found out what was wrong with v1.3.0 and fixed it in v1.3.1. I also did some tuning. I ran 200 games and it seems to be gaining elo compared to v1.2.0 now.

https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.3.1

I expect about 3082 elo for v1.3.1.

Thanks very much for testing!

[Gabor Szots]

Hi all,
I found out what was wrong with v1.3.0 and fixed it in v1.3.1. I also did some tuning. I ran 200 games and it seems to be gaining elo compared to v1.2.0 now.

https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.3.1

I expect about 3082 elo for v1.3.1.

Thanks very much for testing!

Thanks. You may not have noticed but 130 was a significant improvement over 120 at blitz time controls.

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi all,
I found out what was wrong with v1.3.0 and fixed it in v1.3.1. I also did some tuning. I ran 200 games and it seems to be gaining elo compared to v1.2.0 now.

https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.3.1

I expect about 3082 elo for v1.3.1.

Thanks very much for testing!

Thanks. You may not have noticed but 130 was a significant improvement over 120 at blitz time controls.

That’s interesting. Now I hope this bug fix doesn’t revert the blitz elo gain.

[Yinuo Huang]

Hi all,
First of all, congratulations on the 100th Amateur Series! Thank you for voluntarily doing this. CCRL team, you all are amazing.
I just got back from school to coding for a bit... So I'm here to release v1.4.0 for the 100th amateur series, I guess. v1.4.0 is around 3131 elo, but can be anywhere around 3110-3170.

Here's the release page: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.4.0

Please ignore the "1.4.0.1" in binaries. They should be 1.4.0, Github is being strange today.

4CPU support is coming in the next release. Also please let me know if the engine flags - I changed the time management system so there might be new bugs I didn't catch. But I ran a few hundred games it looked okay with time.

Thank you!

[Yinuo Huang]

Note: "go depth xx" and "go movetime xx" are currently broken. I will fix it in the next release. I hope it doesn't affect testing.

[bastiball]

Hi all,
First of all, congratulations on the 100th Amateur Series! Thank you for voluntarily doing this. CCRL team, you all are amazing.
I just got back from school to coding for a bit... So I'm here to release v1.4.0 for the 100th amateur series, I guess. v1.4.0 is around 3131 elo, but can be anywhere around 3110-3170.

Here's the release page: https://github.com/SnowballSH/Avalanche ... tag/v1.4.0

Please ignore the "1.4.0.1" in binaries. They should be 1.4.0, Github is being strange today.

4CPU support is coming in the next release. Also please let me know if the engine flags - I changed the time management system so there might be new bugs I didn't catch. But I ran a few hundred games it looked okay with time.

Thank you!

Congrats for the release!