HAL9000

HAL9000
"It just isn't conceivable that you can design a program strong enough to beat players like me."

March 31, 2016

Android UCI engine update: Komodo 9.42

The quest for the perfect chess engine is not slowing down. Soon after the release of  9.4, followed by buggy 9.41 and bugfixed 9.42, the latest version of the commercial fleet leader is now ported to Android, as promised by Mark Lefler of the Komodo team in a forum post.

There's nothing clear yet for me to speculate about the improvement over the disappointing 9.3 but i must admit i've got high hopes this time. We'll soon see about this, no later than May-2016 release of Rapidroid ranking.

In contrast to rating lists based on Windows, Komodo 9.3 Android had performed bad, way behind its unique rival Stockfish-7, by a huge 70 ELO. The gap couldn't be explained by the default contempt of 10. It was exactly the same default setting with Komodo 9.2.

Remembering that Komodo 9.2 was the previous leader ahead of Stockfish 6 until TCEC-8 after which both engines have been updated for Windows and Android afterwards, Komodo 9.3 has quickly become a bad memory that a better version must erase.

I hope 9.42 will do exactly what's expected.

Komodo 9.42 for Android is a free update for owners of  previous 9.X owners. Otherwise if you want to try it for the first time, don't waste your time for a completely free solution. It doesn't exist. As the price is reasonable, just buy it at GOOGLE PLAY.

In case you feel doubtful of another unexpected regression, you may backup your current version with Titanium Backup before downloading the update, so that if anything bad occurs, you have the option to revert back later on.

Don't forget: Once upgraded via Google Play, you can't install any previous 9.X version with regular methods. So, only Titanium can help for a downgrade.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't wait for the results!

Unknown said...

Today, Komodo 9.42 started to replay the same games Komodo 9.3 played previously. There are 19 rounds and 348 games to replay. With two Exynos 4412 devices running in parallel, i need at least 10 days to finish. Very slow in fact because many gauntlets will finish and wait for me to get back from work. Grrrr...

Alex said...

Hi guys.
I don't want to disappoint you,but,new Komodo has almost the same straight with the ST7..:-(

Unknown said...

I wouldn't be disappointed with K9.42 = SF7 at all. After falling 70 ELO behind, an equality must be considered a perfect boost from K9.3.
Sincerely, i don't even expect an equality. We'd better play and see.

Unknown said...

After first 20 games, 1 point increase. Looks like there's an improvement but the gap may only be reduced, not fully recovered.

Unknown said...

Does anybody know what the ideal hash table size would be for Komodo 9.42 on a Huawei P8 Lite? For 30 minute games

Unknown said...

You have 2GB of ram. 256MB will be fine for you, even with two engines playing. You can even use 512MB if Komodo plays with you but it won't need that much for 30 min games.

Unknown said...

Thanks Gurcan