3 <title>WGP: UCI installation</title>
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6 <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td>
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7 <h1>The WinBoard Gold Pack 4.4.0</h1>
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8 <h2>For the ultimate WinBoard experience!</h2>
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10 <img src="../../WinBoard/doc/mini.gif">
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12 <h3>Getting UCI Engines to run under Polyglot</h3>.
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14 UCI engines need the Polyglot adapter to communicate with WinBoard.
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15 As far as WinBoard is concerned, Polyglot is the engine.
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16 Polyglot has to be instructed to which real engine it should 'connect',
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17 and it takes this information from file, known as a Polyglot .ini file.
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18 Apart from telling polyglot which UCI engine to run,
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19 Polyglot alo has to supply all paramter settings for this UCI engine
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20 that WInBoard doesn't.
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21 And UCI engines usually need a lot more support from their GUI than WinBoard engines.
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22 Polyglot has to fill in the gaps, again from information stored in the Polyglot .ini file.
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24 This leaves us with the problem to fill that Poglot .ini file with all the required info.
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25 For the engine name, location and standard parameters this is not such a big problem:
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26 we could copy the .ini file of another engine, and just change the name in it.
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27 But every UCI engine defines its own engine-specific options,
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28 and they all do it in different ways, needing different values for them.
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29 Polyglot GUI is a program that figures out what options a UCI engine needs,
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30 and what their defaut settings what should be.
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31 It then can create a Polyglot .ini file for that engine that contins all this information.
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33 Navigate to the Polyglot14w folder of the WinBoard Gold Pack.
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34 This folder contains two application files, polyglot itself
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35 (which is there ony for running by WinBoard),
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37 Double-click the latter to start Polyglot GUI.
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38 A file-selector window will pop, though which you can browse to one of your UCI engines.
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39 By double-clicking the engine application file in the corresponding engine folder,
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40 you will make Polyglot GUI interrogate this engine in UCI protocol,
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41 to learn which options it supports and requires.
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42 In this example we have used Fruit 2.1 for this purpose.
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44 After selecting the engine, a window that is divided in a right and left part will appear.
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45 On the left you will see a set of controls for the engine-specific options,
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46 on the right the options for Polyglot (which are thus always the same).
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47 Both parts of the screen have a vertical slider, as the number of options is usually too large to fit the window.
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48 Fortunately all options are already preset to their default value,
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49 and unless you know very well what an option does, it is best to leave it there.
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50 So we will now only discuss the options that require attention.
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52 We start wit the Polyglot settings on the right.
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53 From top to bottom we see: Engine name, installation folder and name of the application.
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54 In fact this is what we just entered by clicking the engine application, so it is always correct.
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55 Then we must select if Polyglot wil use a book on behalf of the engine,
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56 and where to find this book file (which must be a book in Polyglot format).
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57 Although WinBoard is also able to consult a book on behalf of the engines,
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58 it currently always consults the same book for both engines.
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59 So it does not make much sense to ut the same general book here as WinBoard is already using.
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60 But some UCI engines are dependent on Polyglot for their opening book,
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61 although it is a book that is made especially for them.
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62 For such engines it would make sense to put the book dedicated to them here.
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63 Then they can use their private book, while the opponent is using another one.
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64 Fruit downloads usually comes with an opening book called "book_small.bin",
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65 and we could type that in the book field, provided that we have put it in the Polyglot14w folder
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66 with the other Polyglot books, including the general book "default.bin" that came with the WinBoard Gold Pack.
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67 If we prefer to keep the book in the Fruit2_1 folder,
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68 we must type "../Fruit2_1/book_small.bin" here (without the quotes).
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69 This is not really needed, though, as Fruit is perfectly able to consult its own book.
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70 (Polyglot and Fruit use the same book format, as they are by the same author!)
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72 Next check box and text field only have to be completed if we want to make a log file
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73 (recording all communication between Polyglot and WinBoard), which makes little sense for normal use.
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74 (It is meant for debugging.)
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75 Then we can control if Polyglot must be able to resign on behalf of the engine.
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76 (UCI engines cannot resign by themselves.)
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78 <img src="PGfruit.png">
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80 The left part of the Polyglot GUI window will look different for every engine,
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81 as it represents the engine-specific options.
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82 Some options are standard, though.
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83 These are shown at the top.
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84 We startd there entering the size of the hash table.
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85 (Future Polyglot versions might overrule this with the value specified in WinBoard,
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86 but for now it is an important engine parameter.)
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87 The check box that follows is not important,
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88 as Polylot will translate and transmit the ponder command from WinBoard to the engine in real time,
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89 and is not dependent on a static setting gven in the Polyglot .ini file.
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90 If you want to run matches between 2 engines, select about 1/4 of your computer's memory size.
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92 Next you would have to specify if the engine has an "own" book,
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93 i.e. one that it can consult without the aid of Polyglot.
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94 We already mentioned that for Fruit you can do both, because the format of ts own book
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95 is the same as hat of a Polyglot book.
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96 But in general, that will not be the case, and books downloaded with the engine might have
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97 an unknown proprietry formt.
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98 Then it is really essential to put the name of that book here,
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99 and not in the right part as Polyglot book, as Polyglot wouldn't understand any of it.
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100 In the Fruit example, the following options are already specialist options for tuning the engine,
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101 and we leave them alone.
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103 SMP engines might have another important parameter, the number of CPUs they must use.
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104 The name for this option is not standardized,
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105 but contains something like "threads", "cores", or "CPUs" in its description.
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106 Better not use values larger than the number of cores your computer has if you plan to play without ponder,
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107 and even half of tat when you want to play with ponder on.
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109 <h3>Saving the Settings in a Polyglot .ini file</h3>
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111 The last, and most important step is to save the settings we just made in a Polyglot .ini file.
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112 To this end we must first type the name of the file we want,
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113 which is the name that we also use when installing the engine in the PSWBTM engine database.
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114 This name must be unique, as all Polyglot .ini files sit in the same folder in the
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115 configuration the WinBoard Gold Pack uses.
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116 So never call it polyglot.ini, as Polyglot GUI proposes.
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117 For Fruit we would call it fruit.ini.
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118 If we have multiple versions of Fruit on our computer they all must have their own .ini file
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119 with its own unique name.
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120 After having typed this name, we click the "Save" button on the bottom right.
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121 That terminates Polyglot GUI,
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122 and leaves the .ini file in the Polyglot14w folder (which is where Polyglot expects it).
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125 <a href=".html"></a>
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127 <a href=".html"></a>
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129 <a href=".html"></a>
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131 <a href=".html"></a>
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projects / xboard.git / blob