CCRL Discussion Board

Hi,
I have seen a recent test of endgame search with the 5-piece Nalimov EGTB on 2 x 4 GB USB key (of course also possible on 1 x 8 GB key).
Seems all the disk access inconveniences are gone!...
Which also means bitbases (Shredder 10) are no longer useful.

For those who read German, see
http://www.computerschach.de/index.php? ... Itemid=273

Any comment?

I think Shredderbases will still be useful because the whole point of them is that they are stored in RAM and accessed much faster than any USB device.

Kirill Kryukov wrote:I think Shredderbases will still be useful because the whole point of them is that they are stored in RAM and accessed much faster than any USB device.

And accessed very much earlier in the game as well.

However, using the USB device would certainly save wear and tear on the hard drive.

ernest wrote:Hi,
I have seen a recent test of endgame search with the 5-piece Nalimov EGTB on 2 x 4 GB USB key (of course also possible on 1 x 8 GB key).
Seems all the disk access inconveniences are gone!...
Which also means bitbases (Shredder 10) are no longer useful.

For those who read German, see
http://www.computerschach.de/index.php? ... Itemid=273

Any comment?

I can't read German but I am doubious -

USB keys are so much slower than disk - even the faster ones.

I have a 4GB Corsair flash voyager here and it is so slow compared to disk (even for read) - now I realise why hybrids have not caught on yet.

Shaun

ShaunBrewer wrote: I can't read German but I am doubious -

USB keys are so much slower than disk - even the faster ones.

I have a 4GB Corsair flash voyager here and it is so slow compared to disk (even for read) - now I realise why hybrids have not caught on yet.

Shaun

Yes that is so true

ShaunBrewer wrote: I can't read German but I am doubious -
USB keys are so much slower than disk - even the faster ones.
I have a 4GB Corsair flash voyager here and it is so slow compared to disk (even for read) - now I realise why hybrids have not caught on yet.
Shaun

Hi Shawn,
Well, the Corsair flash voyager certainly is one of the fastest!
Maybe you can try to read the German article, there are lots of result tables. Maybe I can help with some parts you feel important to be translated.
With 4 GB you can even experiment, since you can put half of the 5-piece Nalimov on it.

A single dual-layer DVD would be cheaper and faster than any USB key would ever dream of.

Vegan wrote:A single dual-layer DVD would be cheaper and faster than any USB key would ever dream of.

My comments above regarding flash are out of date there are much faster flash drives now and I ran some experiments here:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2753

I would be surprised if DVD was faster but would be interested in any results.

Shaun

DVD is also drastically cheaper. I have 6 some 20ish DVD's of 6 pieces Nalimov Tablebases available. More are added daily.

http://contract-developer.dyndns.biz/

and there page is linked of the main page

Vegan wrote:http://contract-developer.dyndns.biz/

What are those crazy prices?...

Are you trying to make indecent money on us?

Better stick to your vegetables...

Have you seen postal rates around here? Not to mention the failure rate of burners burning disks all day?

I have also expanded the offerings to allow for subsets etc.

and now back to topic.

so what is the modern though then on ramdisc? the memory is faster than static (read: keydisc) memory, and the one downside is that you would have to copy the tables to the ramdisc (which is QUICK [under 2 minutes] from blu-ray) when you want to use them. in fact, the only speed limitation in this case is your front side bus. and with all the money vegan is making at his prices, he should just about be able to ship everyone a motherboard capable of handling 12+GB ram with his table delivery and still make a profit.


gambit - i like the dutch definition. "zelf een potje hacken" (cut your own leg off) :>

and now back to your regularly scheduled ads.

Blu_Ray are expensive still, recent price check was $25 for a single disk, and no spindles of disks were available.

I offer tablebases on DVD, and if I can get dual layer disks cheap enough, I may use those more but they are still 3x the cost per gig compared to DVD5 (single layer) disks.

My personal disk is a dual layer DVD that I take to chess events in case they are needed. I also keep Arena and Crafty in the same DVD.

When I sell 5 pieces, I use a dual layer disk (if available) or 2 single layer disks.

I use single layer disks for 42 and 33 subsets of 6 pieces, and hard disk for the 42p and 33p sets.

To put 6 pieces on single layer DVD take 270 disks, and 170 dual layer disks. Hard disks are easier to use. Blue ray are way to expensive, and holographic media has no installed drives to speak of yet.

http://contract-developer.dyndns.biz/ if you want to see my tb offerings