Getting in Too Deep

Working in computer chess software, the one question customers ask the most is “What is the difference between Deep and non-Deep chess engines?”.. However, in the last year or so, a close second is “What is the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit chess engines?”. Let’s take a look at the answers to both…

Deep vs “non-deep”(or standard) engines

So, for instance, Fritz 13 chess playing software ("Fritz" is the name of teh chess engine) comes in two versions. “Fritz 13" and “Deep Fritz 13”. Superficially, the products look very similar when you load them onto a PC. In fact, the interface (the part of the program that you see – the board, the analysis, the layout of the windows etc) is exactly the same. The real difference between the versions, is within chess engine (the chess playing “brain” of the program) itself. Now, I won’t get too technical with this, but if you have bought a PC in the last couple of years, you may have heard terms like “dual-core”, “quad-core”, “multi-core” etc. Don’t worry too much about the exact detailed meanings of those terms, sufficed to say that a “multi-core” processor has more than one core; which at a basic level means that your processor can do more than one thing at once, and is therefore faster than a single-core processor. Which means your experience of using your computer will be faster with a multi-core processor than with a single-core processor.

With me so far? Good.

In simple terms, two cores with be twice as fast as one core, and four cores with be four times as fast etc. (in reality, two cores are likely to give you a 60-70% increase in speed over a single core)

What does that mean for Fritz? Well, that’s the difference – you see as “non-deep” or standard Fritz, will only use one core of your computers’ processor NO MATTER HOW MANY THERE ARE. So if you are using a single-core machine, or a machine with eight cores, standard fritz will ONLY use one core, and so you will not see appreciable difference in the level of analysis. However DEEP Fritz can use ALL the cores on your machine, meaning that on a dual-core machine, Deep Fritz will analyse roughly twice as fast as it would on a single-core machine; four times as fast on a quad-core; and so on. Faster analysis = stronger analysis (over the same period of time).

It’s interesting to note that if you give plain old “non-deep” fritz more time to analyse than Deep Fritz, it will eventually find the same moves that Deep Fritz finds. But of course if Deep Fritz is twice as fast as “non-deep” fritz, then “non-deep” Fritz will need twice as long!

So, to put it simply, if you want the absolute strongest analysis that your computer is capable of, then purchase the DEEP version of a chess engine.

But if Deep engines are faster and better, why buy “non-deep” engines at all? Well the answer is simple – VALUE FOR MONEY! “Deep” engines are usually twice the price of “non-deep” engines, but the standard engines will still give you Super-Grandmaster level analysis AND all of the same features that the Deep version will give you, so you really are getting a lot of “bang for your buck”.

So, if you want the best value-for-money chess analysis that your computer is capable of, buy the “non-deep” version of a chess engine.

32 bit vs. 64 bit chess engines

This question is a little bit more complicated. We don’t need to know the technical details of what “32 bit” or “64 bit” means, we just have to know the consequences of using one or the other.

Until three or four years ago, 99.9% of people had 32 bit software on their PC. That was the standard, but 32 bit software has an inherent limit to the amount of RAM memory (the “working” memory that your computer uses when carrying out tasks) of a little under 4 gigabytes (GB).

But then, that wasn’t a big issue, as most PCs came with 1 or 2 GB of RAM as standard. Pretty soon though, as the demands of modern programs increased, 2GB of RAM wasn’t enough to run those programs smoothly and rapidly; so the solution was to install a 64 bit version of Microsoft Windows (if your computer processor was new enough to be able to take advantage of 64 bit software). 64 bit software can utilise all the RAM memory of modern computers, allowing people to use a lot more than the previous 4GB limit.

One of the main ways that this impacts chess programs like Fritz, is that it allows you to add more RAM to your computer, which allows you to have bigger “hash table” sizes, which can be important, especially during a lengthy computer analysis.

Another consequence is that due to the way they are programmed, some 64 bit versions of chess engines will be faster than their 32 bit counterparts when using same hardware - which means that the chess engine analysis that they give you will be stronger. This is most noticeable in engines such as Rybka 4, which was almost twice as fast on my old machine when I upgraded to a 64 bit version of windows (without changing anything else about the computer). Also, it’s noted on their website, that the team behind “Houdini 3” state that the 64 bit version is ~30% than the 32 bit version.

Some of the other engines (such as HIARCS) have been programmed differently, and therefore you do not see a notable increase in speed with 64 bit software.

How to tell if you have 64 bit Microsoft Windows on your PC

There is a handy walkthrough of how to tell whether you are using 64 bit MS windows (including an automatic check) produced by Microsoft themselves at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827218

I personally do it by accessing the “system” icon in my computers “control panel” (see the above link for detailed instructions on how to do this) and there I can see this:

You can see under “system type” that it says “64-bit Operating System”.

To conclude; 64 bit software is the standard nowadays, and using 64 bit software can only be beneficial to chess analysis. If you have a 64 bit version of MS windows, then I would always recommend using the 64 bit version of the chess engine where available – like the new Deep Fritz 14, which is now in 64 bit version. The great thing about ChessBase engines, is that they will install the appropriate engine automatically (therefore if your computer can take advantage of a 64 bit engine, it will install that version of the program!)