Version 0.21.0 (2017-03-03) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Do zero window principal variation search only after a move better
than alpha has been found.
* Do null move also in parallel search.
* Speed optimization in Search::probe_hashtable().
* Compilation fix for leonbare.
* Added simple installer for Windows.
* Added binary build script for Windows (mingw32).
* On Windows, also accept %VAR% syntax for environment variable
substitution.
Version 0.20.0 (2017-02-01) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Bugfix: Fix lost on time in parallel search.
* Bugfix: Fix division by zero when generating very small opening
books.
* Bugfix: Moved leonbare specific stdint.h and inttypes.h from sparc32
into sparc32/leon directory to fix compilation failure on sparc64.
* [xiangqi] Handle perpetual checks.
* [xiangqi] Improved pawn evaluation.
* Included reproducible-build patch from Debian package
hoichess_0.19.0-3.
* Fail soft search.
(Experimental - currently disabled by default, but can be enabled
through shell option.)
* No time extensions in exact clock mode.
* New abstraction layer for time functions. Removed gettimeofday()
wrapper for Win32.
* Added command 'atexit' to register commands that shall be executed
upon shell exit.
* Use own versions of snprintf() and strtok_r() only if these
functions are not provided by the system.
* Cleaned up some platform/compiler specific stuff.
* Minor fixes and code cleanups.
Version 0.19.0 (2016-08-08) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Strict fail hard search.
(Temporary - to reduce search instabilities to help discovering
bugs. In the future, fail soft search will be implemented as an
option.)
* Store normalized mate scores in hash table.
Version 0.18.0 (2016-06-07) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Bugfix: Ignore 'draw', 'rating' and '?' commands instead of aborting
with error.
* Bugfix: In exact clock mode, do not check if remaining time is
enough for new iteration.
* Bugfix: Keep values of verbose, debug and echo when registering
them as shell options.
* Some bugfixes in parallel search.
* Reworked iterative deepening code.
* Return PV during search through class Node instead of search
functions in order to simplify code.
* Rewrote move ordering in class Node:
- Generate all moves at once.
- New scoring.
- Include PV move from previous iteration.
- Losing captures last.
* In parallel search, store PV line in master's hash table to provide
a better move ordering for slaves.
(Experimental - currently disabled by default, but can be enabled
through shell option.)
* Rewrote time allocation code to be more safe and not exceed remaining
time. Track externally lost time to adapt safety margin to system
speed. (Try)
* Changed time unit from centiseconds to milliseconds internally to
increase precision of time measurement and calculations.
* Rewrote timecheck interval computation code. Added shell options to
specify minimum and maximum intervals.
* Various code improvements related to clock handling.
* Removed configuration defines USE_PVS, USE_IID, USE_NULLMOVE,
USE_HISTORY and USE_KILLER to clean up code. These features are
now always enabled.
* Removed commands 'dumppgn' and 'show tree' as well as output switches
of command 'show moves'. They were only used for testing.
* Minor code cleanups.
Version 0.17.0 (2016-01-19) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Improved parallel search algorithm: Search first move recursively,
then remaining moves in parallel.
* Parallel search: Master hash table
* Extend search time when remaining time is expected to be slightly too
short to finish current iteration.
* Do not start a new iteration if remaining time is very likely not
sufficient.
* [chess] Bugfix in draw by material detection.
* Support xboard 'option' command, available since xboard 4.4.x.
* Support multiple --source and --initcmd arguments.
* Search for hoichess.rc in current, home and installation data
directory; added new option --norc to disable this.
* Install default hoichess.rc in data directory.
* Substitute environment variables in shell.
* Avoid xboard timeout between 'protover' and 'feature' if engine
initialization takes long.
* Removed old time extension code. It has never been fully tested.
* Removed search depth extensions. They have never been fully tested
and probably not even understood.
* Removed commands 'set/get search_param' because they are superseded
by the new 'option' command.
* Removed commands 'ignore' and 'obey' because they have never been
used.
* Removed configuration defines USE_BOOK, USE_PGN, USE_HASH,
USE_PAWNHASH and USE_EVALCACHE to clean up code. These features are
now always enabled.
* Removed command line options --book, --nobook, --hashsize,
--pawnhashsize, --evalcache, --name, --append-name and corresponding
defaults in config.h. Defaults are now supposed to be in hoichess.rc.
* Support pthread on leonbare (buggy).
* Support parallel search on Win32 (Queue).
* Fixed compilation failures without thread support.
* Bugfix in parallel search statistics.
* Removed some other unused code.
* Minor code cleanups and fixes.
Version 0.16.1 (2015-07-23) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Testsuite solver: Tolerate non-standard bm values in EPD.
* Re-create hash, pawn hash and evaluation cache with same total
sizes when switching number of cores.
Version 0.16.0 (2015-05-21) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Initial implementation of parallel search. (ALPHA)
* Removed log file mechanism because it has never been used.
* Included most fixes from Debian package hoichess_0.10.3-6.1.
Version 0.15.0 (2015-02-02) <holger@hoicher.de>
* New command 'show tree'.
* Use own versions of *printf for leonbare in order to support %llu
etc.
* Use the defaults for book, hash size, pawn hash size and evaluation
cache size only if there is no user command script. In that case all
configuration is expected there.
* Added command line option --initcmd. If not set, read builtin
initial commands, with weak linkage.
* First preparations for implementation of parallel search.
* Removed benchmarking and movelist statistics code.
* [win32] Get return value from thread.
* Minor code cleanups and fixes.
Version 0.14.0 (2014-10-07) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Fixes for latest gcc/glibc: added missing #includes
* Fixes for leonbare:
- Added own implementation of htonl, htons, ntohl, ntohs and usleep
because they are not available on current leonbare.
- Bugfix in own fgets.
- Fixed format strings.
* Minor fixes in build system.
Version 0.13.0 (2014-02-02) <holger@hoicher.de>
* x86_64 assembler versions of msb and lsb routines.
* Implemented command 'usermove'.
* [chess] Do not reset movecnt50 after a castling move.
* Support LEON processor with leonbare.
* Collect PV during search.
* Command 'solve': Allow reading positions from stdin (-).
* Command 'show moves': Added options -pseudolegal and -nosan
and -no-pseudolegal-castling.
* Bugfix in command 'solve': Reset clock before starting search.
* Fixed getopt include problems.
* Allow compilation without main hash table support.
* Rewrote src/Makefile once again. Added automatic check for
getopt_long, pthread and readline availabiliy.
* Statically link libstdc++ and libgcc on mingw32.
* Support use of GCC builtins for bitscan and population count.
Select the fastest implementation (own asm, LUT, GCC builtin)
depending on CPU.
* Code cleanup and restructuring:
- Moved management of hash/pawnhash/evalcache from class Shell
into Search and Evaluator.
- Rewrote tree implementation again; removed class Tree in
favour of new class NodeAllocator.
- Other minor things.
* Fixed bug in iterate() that could result in calling search with
beta > INFTY or alpha < -INFTY.
* Improved thinking output.
* Build book. (No source PGN included yet, but script to download
GNU Chess book.)
* Take SVN branch/revision as program version.
* Removed dist-src target from top-level Makefile.
* VHDLChess (changes not listed here)
Version 0.12.1 (2009-01-25) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Fixed Xiangqi FEN parsing for latest xboard version.
Version 0.12.0 (2008-08-15) <holger@hoicher.de>
* [chess] Fixed long-existing bug in generate_escapes(), and use it.
* [chess] Evaluation:
- Score Pawn shield in front of king.
- Keep rook on back rank until endgame.
* Compile with USE_ASM by default. (New option added with 0.11.1,
but disabled by accident.)
* Reformatted most informational output for easier parsing by scripts.
* Some improvements to build system to ease multiple-platform build.
Version 0.11.1 (2008-07-28) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Do not use assembler code for WIN64 (x86_64-pc-mingw32).
Version 0.11.0 (2008-07-27) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Book: Do not use exception in constructor. Now we can
compile with -fno-exceptions to reduce code size.
* Enable compilation without support for opening book, PGN parser,
pawn hash table, evaluation cache, background thread
(pondering/analysis).
* Code cleanup/restructuring:
- Moved search output from class Search into class Shell.
- Moved most common source files into subdirectory src/common.
* [chess] Minor optimizations:
- Bitboard code: Use computation instead of lookup tables in some
functions related to rotated bitboards.
- others...
* Dynamically adjust time check interval during search to work
on slower processors without source code change.
* Some improvements to build system.
* Various minor changes and improvements.
Version 0.10.3 (2007-12-18) <holger@hoicher.de>
* When saving PGN, include FEN if starting position is non-standard.
* Moved opening FEN from game.h into {chess,xiangqi}/basic.{cc,h}.
* Changed piece letters for Xiangqi to be compatible with Winboard_F.
* Added some #includes to make code compilable with latest
gcc 4.3 snapshot.
* Some additional changes to avoid warnings when compiling with latest
gcc 4.3 snapshot
Version 0.10.2 (2007-10-30) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Bugfix in command 'playboth': Stop background thread before
switching to playboth mode.
* [HoiXiangqi] Print variant 'xiangqi' in 'feature' list.
Version 0.10.1 (2007-10-28) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Support 'variant' command.
HoiChess supports no variant.
HoiXiangqi supports variant 'xiangqi' for Winboard_F by
H.G. Muller.
Version 0.10.0 (2007-10-12) <holger@hoicher.de>
* [chess] Evaluation: Rook and Queen mobility.
Version 0.9.0 (2007-04-23) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Search extensions: in check, recapture.
* Shell: Rewrote input/script reading code.
* Read commands from hoichess.rc, or hoixiangqi.rc, respectively,
if such a file exists in the current directory.
* Added command line option --rcfile which replaces --script
(sounds better). --script remains for compatibility reasons.
* Renamed shell command 'script' in 'source' (sounds better).
* Clear pawn hash table and evaluation cache in testsuite mode.
* Minor fixes to remove warnings when compiling with latest
gcc snapshot.
Version 0.8.0 (2006-11-26) <holger@hoicher.de>
* [chess] Evaluation: Fianchetto bishop, early wing pawn move.
Version 0.7.0 (2006-10-17) <holger@hoicher.de>
* [chess] Evaluation: Added 2nd phase: board control.
* Evaluation: Set material cutoff to 150 cp.
* Moved common code from src/chess/eval.cc and src/xiangqi/eval.cc to
src/eval.cc.
* Added a few words about Xiangqi to man page.
Version 0.6.1 (2006-08-11) <holger@hoicher.de>
* [chess] Evaluation: Pawn and bishop protecting each other.
Version 0.6.0 (2006-08-04) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Experimental implementation of Xiangqi (aka. Chinese chess,
elephant chess).
HoiXiangqi is built mostly from the same source as HoiChess.
Source code is split into common, chess, and xiangqi parts.
Changes to common and chess specific code was reduced to a
minimum, hopefully without introducing any new bugs.
Basic stuff is already implemented and runs quite stable.
Now it's time to fix bugs, complete support for Xiangqi rules,
and improve speed and evaluation.
* Added command 'playboth' that can be used to let the engine play
against itself for testing purposes.
* Added commands 'loadgame' and 'savegame' to load and save PGN files.
* Added command 'redo'.
* Write debugging messages to log file (even when started
without '-d' option).
* Some more debugging messages in search and shell.
Version 0.5.1 (2006-07-17) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Small fix concerning vsnprintf() when compiling with Intel compiler
on Windows.
* Benchmark code: Make 1000 instead of 100 loops before checking
time, to reduce system call overhead. For this reason, benchmark
results from previous versions will _not_ be comparable anymore.
Version 0.5.0 (2006-07-14) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Futility pruning, extended futility pruning, and razoring.
* Added compile-time option COLLECT_STATISTICS to enable compilation
without hash, search, and evaluator statistics.
Version 0.4.3 (2006-06-12) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Fixed bug in opening book code that made books unreadable on
Windows (and probably other architectures) due to the changes
in 0.4.2. From now on, all books should be readable on all
architectures, no matter where, and with which version they
were created.
Version 0.4.2 (2006-06-09) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Opening book: Reverse byte order on big endian systems, to make
books interchangeable between architectures. In detail, this means:
o Books created on little endian machines can now be used on
on both architectures.
o Books created on big endian machines with this or a later release
of HoiChess will also work on both architectures.
o Books created on big endian machines with older releases will
not work on any architecture, but I don't think there exist such
books.
* Makefile: Place object/binary files in a separate directory,
one per platform.
* Shell: Use GNU readline library if available.
Version 0.4.1 (2006-04-01) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Improved time allocation in incremental time control mode.
Version 0.4.0 (2006-02-28) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Null-move forward pruning.
* Evaluation:
o Fixed knight and bishop mobility calculation.
o Improved pawn evaluation, e.g. connected passed pawns.
o Improved evaluation of development during opening phase.
o Queen evaluation: get near enemy king. (disabled)
o King evaluation: attacked squares around king. (disabled)
o QB- and QR-combo.
o More sophisticated material balance calculation.
* Build Windows binary using mingw32 compiler.
Version 0.3.9 (2006-02-13) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Pawn hash table.
Version 0.3.8 (2006-02-04) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Start pondering not before game has actually started. This could
help to avoid problems during xboard startup.
* Evaluation cache.
* Size of hash table is now always given in bytes, kilobytes or
megabytes, setting number of entries is not possible any longer.
This applies to both the command line option and the shell.
* Use a new move parser when reading PGNs. This leads to a significant
speedup of opening book generation.
* Rewrote PGN parser. New parser partly accepts the less strict PGN
import format.
* Opening book: Only store moves with a user-defined minimum number
of occurrences.
Version 0.3.7 (2005-12-29) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Evaluation: rooks on open/half-open files.
* Changed default hash replacement scheme to 'always replace'.
* Enabled principal variation search again. I thought it was buggy
but it wasn't.
* Added some more cases where draw by insufficient material is
detected.
* Collect and print evaluator statistics.
* Added command line option --color.
* Command line option --xboard now takes optional arguments
'off', 'on' and 'auto'. If set to 'auto' (default), xboard mode
is automatically enabled when stdout is not a terminal.
Version 0.3.6 (2005-12-10) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Extend search time when in check, near book, or fail low.
This is an experimental feature which is disabled by default,
but can be enabled using the command 'set search_features'
(see documentation).
* Implemented replacement scheme 'always replace' for hash table.
The old depth based scheme remains the default. The scheme can
be changed using the new command 'hash replace' (see documentation).
* Added commands 'verbose' and 'debug'.
* Added commands 'set' and 'get' to allow changing some internal
parameters.
* Allow recursive 'script' commands, so that using the command
from within a script works as expected.
* Some code restructuring and cleanups.
* Automatically enable ANSI color when stdout is terminal.
Version 0.3.5 (2005-10-30) <holger@hoicher.de>
Some of the changes in this version were already introduced in the
experimental releases 0.3.4+exp1 and 0.3.4+exp2.
* Limit thinking output to 30 ply to work around xboard buffer
overflow bug.
* Improved pawn evaluation: isolated pawns, passed pawns, passed pawns
protected by rook/queen behind them.
* Completely rewrote search tree data structures. Source can be
configured to use either one global board together with unmake_move,
or local board copies at each node. (Default is local boards, which
seems to be faster.)
* Rewrote move ordering, implemented killer move heuristics.
* New benchmark suite with predefined benchmarks for move generator,
evaluator and make_move/unmake_move routines.
* Collect more statistics during search: average nps, average
depth, and average branching factor.
* In solve mode, write results into log file.
* Added command 'hash'.
* Renamed command line option --cmdfile in --script.
* Added command 'script' to read commands from file just like option
--script does.
* Added command line option -d/--debug.
* Minor code cleanups and improvements.
Version 0.3.4 (2005-09-24) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Fixed some race conditions by making sure that most output sent
to xboard is atomic.
* Added own commands 'ignore' and 'obey' for debugging purposes.
* Added command line option --cmdfile.
Version 0.3.3 (2005-09-16) <holger@hoicher.de>
* (Hopefully) fixed dual cpu ponder bug (see BUGS).
* Added list of open bugs.
* Small but significant speed improvement of rotated bitboard code.
* Much faster repetition detection during search (compare only hash
keys instead of whole Board objects).
* x86 assembler versions of bitboard routines now also for Win32.
* Hash table: Don't store mate scores.
* Hash table: Don't read beta entries during search, since a lot
of good moves were missed because of them.
* Added MSVC++ project files.
Version 0.3.2 (2005-07-06) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Fixed stack overflow due to infinite recursion in
bool Board::parse_fen(const std::string &).
* Fixed time control, implemented commands `time' and `otim'.
* Fixed `force' command: pondering was turned off completely rather
than only as long as force mode is active.
* Completely rewrote thread code in order to fix race condition.
* Skip useless promotions into bishop and rook during search.
Version 0.3.1 (2005-06-25) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Fixed bug in Board::make_move(): castling flags were not cleared
correctly when a king or rook captures an enemy rook.
* Support most time control modes (exact, conventional, incremental,
sudden death).
* Rewrote Game class, keep track of both players' clocks.
* Opening book support.
* PGN parser, used to create opening book.
* Command line option `--hashsize' now also takes size in MB.
* A bit more relaxed SAN input parsing.
* x86 assembler versions of first bit and population count routines.
Version 0.2.4 (2005-05-25) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Thread support for Win32.
* Fixed random number generator bug on Win32.
* Removed Debian and RPM stuff from main sources again. From now
on, I will provide extra patches in order to build such packages.
* Moved most sources from win32/ into utils/ because they are not
specific to Windows, and at least getopt is also needed on Solaris.
* Some fixes to compile on Solaris.
* Some code cleanups and minor fixes.
* Begin re-implementation of class Clock.
Version 0.2.3 (2005-05-16) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Do not call Search::check_time() (and thus gettimeofday()) at every
node (reduce system call overhead).
* Phase detection no longer based on number of moves but on material.
* New EPD parser that can handle multiple operands, quoted strings,
etc.
* Shell::cmd_solve(): compare list of best moves, skip positions that
don't have any best move associated.
Version 0.2.2 (2005-05-14) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Added `help' command.
* Added man page.
* SIGINT now interrupts the commands `solve' and `bench'.
* Added replacement functions for BUG(), WARN() and LOG() macros that
didn't work with non-GNU compilers.
* Support for Win32 platforms (thanks to Jim Ablett and Dann Corbit):
- Compile without pthread on Win32 (-> no pondering and analyze
mode for now).
- Win32 support code in src/win32: getopt, gettimeofday, snprintf.
- Minor fixes for buggy compilers.
Version 0.2.1 (2004-12-12) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Build Debian package.
* Build RPM package (experimental).
Version 0.2 (2004-08-06) <holger@hoicher.de>
This is the first version that was officially released. See
http://www.hoicher.de/hoichess.
* Fixed bug that caused search to return an invalid move if only
one move is possible.
* Added top-level Makefile.
Version 0.1.6 (2004-07-06) <holger@hoicher.de>
* New, improved and modular static evaluator.
* Rewrote move ordering; use LVA/MVV capture ordering in
full-width search too.
* Again more code cleanups.
Version 0.1.5 (2004-06-22) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Repetition detection in tree search.
* Doubled speed of move generator.
* Fixed time handling bug that caused stupid moves to
be played when time runs out.
Version 0.1.4 (2004-06-18) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Position solving and benchmarking functions.
* Implemented a generate_escapes() function.
* Simple LVA/MVV move ordering in quiescence search.
* Put bitboard stuff into class Bitboard.
* Better Makefile with dependency handling.
* Even more code cleanups.
* Cannot win against this version anymore :-(
Version 0.1.3 (2004-05-23) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Simple move ordering: hashmv, captures (ordered by history),
noncaptures (ordered by history).
* Internal iterative deepening.
* Rotated bitboards.
* More code cleanups.
Version 0.1.2 (2004-05-18) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Quiescence search.
* Lots of small improvements and code cleanups.
Version 0.1.1 (2004-04-27) <holger@hoicher.de>
* Initial release: This is the first version of my very own chess
program. It features many of the standard techniques used in
modern chess programs, like bitboards, principal variation search,
iterative deepening, transposition table and history table.
It also interacts quite well with xboard (version 4.2.6) and
supports pondering and analyzing.
However, it is far from being complete, and makes a lot of poor
moves.