3 <title>WGP: Installing Engines</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>Installing Engines in PSWBTM</h3>
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14 Installing a Chess engine always begins with obtaining the necessary files.
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15 There are many places from which you can download Chess engines.
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16 Especially the website of
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17 <a href="http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/enginesindex.htm">WBEC</a> offers a good overview of which engines are around,
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18 and where they can be obtained.
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20 When downloading an engine, it usually come as a compressed archive, (e.g. a .zip file),
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21 containing the engine executabe (= application), plus the data files it needs for its operation
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22 (opening books, logos, manuals, sometimes source code).
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23 There are many compression formats around, e.g. .zip, .tar.gz, .rar, .7z.
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24 On a modern Windows system, the decompression sftware will understand most of those.
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26 One thing one should carefully observe is if the downloaded archive contains a single folder,
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27 or large group of individual files and folders.
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28 In the first case, we would like to place this single folder in the folder on our computer
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29 that holds all our Chess engines:
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30 we would like to have a single folder for each engine, or each version of an engine there.
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31 Otherwise, things would quickly degenerate into a mess, one Chess engine using incompatible data of another,
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32 because it happened to have the same name, etc.
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33 So if the engine comes as a set of loose files inside the archive, rather than a single folder,
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34 we first want to create a new folder inside the folder that holds all our engines,
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35 and unpack the archive there.
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36 Otherwise we would have a lot of trouble collecting the just unpacked files and folders
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37 from amongst out other engine folders.
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38 Milk is a lot easier to spill on the floor than to get back into the bottle, and the same holds for files.
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39 So just to be save I always create a new folder for the engine I am downloading.
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40 If it turns out that unpacking the download gives me a single folder inside this folder,
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41 it is easy enough to eliminate one level of folders, by selecting all the contents,
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42 and dragging it to the encompassing folder.
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43 Very often it is the folder that came with the archive that I get rid off, because it has a cumbersome name.
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45 When the files are sitting where you want them, you have to tell PSWBTM were they are.
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46 PSWBTM will transmit that information to WinBoard when it wants this engine to play.
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47 So WinBoard itself does not have to know anything of the engines,
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48 except when you also want to run the without PSWBTM,
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49 through the WinBoard startup dialog.
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51 To install an engine in PSWBTM, you start up PSWBTM, and select "Tools -> Engine Manager" to pop up
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52 the engine-manager window.
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53 First click the "New" button on the lower-left, to signal that you are going to install a new engine.
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54 (Otherwise you run the risk to overwrite an existing engine, so that it wil disappear from te PSWBTM database.)
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55 After that, you have to complete the three text fields on the upper right.
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57 In the upper field you have to type the name under which you want this engine to appear in the list you see on the left.
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58 You can give it any name you like, this information is only for your convenience.
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59 On the second line you must tell PSWBTM where it can find the engine application file.
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60 Simplest is to use the "Browse" button to browse to it.
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61 This pops up a file-selector dialog.
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62 What you have to do then depends on the type of engine,
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63 if it is WinBoard or UCI.
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64 First we discuss the WinBoard case.
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66 <h3>WinBoard Engines</h3>
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68 Navigate through your file-system tree, first to your folder where all engines folders are,
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69 and then to the folder of the freshly downloaded engine in it.
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70 The file-selector dialog only shows you folders and application (.exe) files.
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71 Usually the engine applicaton is present in the folder you downloaded;
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72 sometimes it in a sub-folder "bin".
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73 Once you reach the executable, double-click it, and the file-selector dialaog will close,
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74 and leave the full name of the application in the second input field of the engine manager window.
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76 The third line has to contain the options the engine needs on the command line that starts it.
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77 What you have to put here can vary enormously, and suffers from total absence of standardization.
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78 Some engines do not need any options on their command line,
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79 because they read all their settings from asom fixed file.
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80 (Usulally this is a .ini file that came with the download of the engine, and sits with it in the same folder.)
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81 Fairy-max is a very simple engine, and the only argument it can have is a number to specify the size of its hash table.
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82 If you omit this, Fairy-Mas uses a default value (96MB), so the option is not strictly needed.
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83 In the WinBoard Gold Pack Fairy-Max is installed with an 48MB hash table, which for Fairy-Max is indicated by the option "22".
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84 Which options you need, and what their values mean can only be learned from reading the documentation that came with the engine.
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85 Fairly common is an option to set the hash size, often called hash, -hash or /hash=....
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86 Some engines need an option xboard or /xboard or --io-mode=xboard to work as WinBoard engines,
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87 and use their own built-in GUI otherwise.
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88 Anyway, whatever the engine needs, you have to type in this third line.
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90 <h3>UCI Engines</h3>
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92 For UCI Engines you must not browse to the engine aplication, but to Polygot in stead.
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93 The latter can be found in the Polyglot15w folder of the WinBoard Gold Pack,
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94 which should also be located in the folder with all engine folders.
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95 In fact Polyglot is an engine for WinBoard,
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96 except that it does't think up the moves it sends toWinBoard by itself,
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97 but consults a UCI engine (speaking to it in UCI protocol) without WinBoard knowing anything about it.
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98 The application you need is named "polyglot.exe" in this folder.
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99 Do not confuse it with "Polyglot GUI.exe, which should also be in this folder,
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100 if you downloaded it.
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101 Double-click polyglot to leave the file-selector dialog, and get its full file name in the second input field of the engine manager.
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103 The third line, for the engine options, now contains the options for Polyglot.
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104 The latter needs only a single option, the name of a file where is specified what it really has to do
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105 (i.e. which UCI engine it should fire up to get the moves, and what parameter settings it should use to control this engine).
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106 If you type a simple filename (without a folder-name part, i.e. without backslashes '\' in it),
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107 Polyglot will look for this file in the directory where its .exe file is located,
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108 which is just the place where we put all such files.
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109 So we type such a simple filename here, which reminds us of the engine.
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110 E.g. to install Fruit, we would type "fruit.ini" on the third line.
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111 That is not the full story yet,
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112 as we also would have to provide the fruit.ini file.
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113 Normally we would have made that file before we would install the engine in PSWBTM,
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114 (see the <a = href="polyglotGUI">installing UCI engines with Polygot GUI</a> page),
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115 but you can also do it afterwards.
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116 The WinBoard Gold pack does already contain a pre-installed fruit.ini file, though,
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117 so at the moment we can simply continue.
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119 <h3>Finishing the install for both WB and UCI engines</h3>
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121 It is possible to add few options for WinBoard that will only be used with this engine,
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122 and not automatically with any other engine you put it with in the same tournament.
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123 (Usually you don't need that so you might skip this paragraph, but it is useful to be aware of the possibility.)
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124 E.g., you could give it a time-odds penalty if it was too strong to make the tournament interesting,
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125 and let it play with only half the time (say) of its opponents.
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126 Winboard does have the optons /firstTimeOdd=2 and /secondTimeOdds=2 for this.
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127 PSWBTM does not have a separate input field for such engine-specific WinBoard settigs,
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128 but you can enter them at the end of te engine options, on the third input line,
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129 after the word "WBopt".
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130 Everything behind this word will be interpreted as WinBoard options,
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131 which will overrule any options in the winboard.ini, or even on the command line invoking WinBoard.
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132 Because the engine will sometimes run under WinBoard as first, and sometimes as second engine,
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133 (depending on the color it plays),
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134 you have to leave it open which of the two time-odds options should be used.
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135 This is done by replacing the "first" or "second" in the option name by "%s".
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136 So for the time-odds example, you would add "WBopt /%sTimeOdds=1" to the third line.
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137 An example for Fairy-Max is pre-installed.
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139 When you have completed all three text-input fields, you should press the button "Save" below it.
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140 After that, you could install a new engine by pressing "New",
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141 but be sure you press "Save" first, or you would lose everything you just did!
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142 If you don't ant to install any other engines,
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143 you should press "Save Changes", and then "Exit" to close the engine manager.
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144 (It is kind eough to arn you if you forget to press "Save Changes",
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145 which is just as well, as exiting without it would make you lose all engines you just installed!)
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146 The newly installed engines are then ready for selection in a tournament!
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147 (Unless it was UCI and you forgot to make the Polyglot .ini file!)
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148 Befor you press "Exit"
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152 a href=".html"></a>
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154 <a href=".html"></a>
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156 <a href=".html"></a>
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158 <a href=".html"></a>
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projects / xboard.git / blob