This new version of Prédateur wasn't meant to be public, as it is only slightly stronger than the prvious version (maybe +50 Elo), when I prefer to release new versions when they are significantly stronger than older ones. But it turns out that I started to rewrite Prédateur using C++ and bitboards, so I had this last pascal version sitting in my harddrive, with some improvements and bugfixes. So I decided to release it anyway. Also, it now comes in three flavors : Win32, Win64 and MacOSX (the Mac version can't "listen" to commands while thinking, so I desabled the ponder mode or it would go into an endless search, unable to answer to a "ponderhit" command). The Mac version will work with Sigma Chess and Jose, but will make Stockfish's interface crash, for some reason I don't know.
Enjoy this new release, before the new generation of Prédateur. :)
Note: this 2.1 version of Prédateur is not to be confused with the "2.1" that entered Olivier Deville's latest OpenWar, which should actually be seen as "2.0.1".
What changed since last update ?
- Prédateur now prunes a tad less, but (hopefully) in a smarter way :
it should diminish search instability and weird moves that
sometimes happened.
- memory-overuse by hash tables fixed (thanks, Joost!)
- in a general way, diminution of the memory footprint : Prédateur
now uses "only" 6 mb of non-hash memory.
- speeded up the move generator, especially the check routine
- some evaluation modifications: Prédateur should now try to
target your king a bit more... be careful!
- Mac OSX version. (Ponder mode disabled).
- some other bugs fixed, here and there.
