RE: [Bug-gnubg] Feature Request: Gnu to use rollouts for playing

[Michael Depreli]

Are you sure that for 0-ply switching off VR is more accurate in a given time?
Unless I'm doing something wrong I get the opposite results.





> Subject: RE: [Bug-gnubg] Feature Request: Gnu to use rollouts for playing
> Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:12:12 +0100
> From: address@hidden
> To: address@hidden
>
>
>
> I've finally got around to running some tests.
>
> Test Environment:
> Intel Core2 Duo T8100 @ 2.10 GHz, 2 GB RAM Windows XP Professional GNU
> Backgammon 0.90-mingw 20090914 Cache 5 MB
>
>
> The test position was opening 43: 13/9 13/10 in a money game
> 1296 trials, cubeful evaluation, truncation at database (default
> databases installed)
>
> Thr VR Plies Trials/min Time
> ======================================
> 2 No 0 7776 00:00:09
> 2 Yes 0 390 00:03:30
> 1 No 0 4860 00:00:16
> 1 Yes 0 205 00:06:22
> 2 No 1 200 00:06:20
> 2 Yes 1 131 00:08:59
> 1 No 1 103 00:12:04
> 1 Yes 1 74 00:18:18
> 2 No XGR 15552 00:00:05
> 2 Yes XGR 1897 00:00:41
>
> Thr = number of threads
> XGR = Extreme Gammon XGRoller emulation: 0 ply rollouts truncated at 6
> moves, first two cube decisions at 1-ply.
> Extreme Gammon does not use VR for XGRoller, but I have repeated the
> test with VR on.
>
> It is clear that the speed hit is enormous when using VR for 0-ply
> rollouts, by a factor of around 20.
>
> At 1-ply, the speed hit is still noticeable, but only by a factor of
> around 1.5.
>
> At 5 seconds per move, the XGR setting is certainly viable for play and
> analysis. And reading the BGOnline forums, there certainly seems to be a
> demand for this feature. (There is no reason for gnubg to copy XG's
> exact settings, if we think something else is superior. In fact, I think
> it should be possible to specify a .rol file to use so that people can
> choose. The default option, though, should be FAST.)
>
> High speed is great, but the reliability of the result is also important
> (though oft overlooked). I also tested the Standard Error reported after
> one minute for various settings. All tests used two threads.
>
> VR Plies Trials SE
> =============================
> Yes 1 136 0.016
> No 1 206 0.088
> Yes 0 373 0.016
> No 0 8836 0.002
>
> It appears that to achieve a low SE in a given time, VR is worthwhile
> for 1-ply rollouts, but for 0-ply rollouts it is better to specify a
> much larger number of trials and switch off VR.
>
>
> -- Ian
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Christian Anthon [mailto:address@hidden
> > Sent: 21 August 2009 22:33
> > To: Ian Shaw
> > Cc: address@hidden
> > Subject: Re: [Bug-gnubg] Feature Request: Gnu to use rollouts for
> > playing
> >
> > Can you check the speed of the threaded/non-threaded rollouts (say
> > 0ply eval 6ply truncation).
> >
> > Christian.
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Ian
> > Shaw<address@hidden> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: Christian Anthon [mailto:address@hidden
> > >> Sent: 20 August 2009 07:28
> > >> To: Ian Shaw
> > >> Cc: address@hidden
> > >> Subject: Re: [Bug-gnubg] Feature Request: Gnu to use rollouts for
> > >> playing
> > >>
> > >> Most of the code is already in place. Things to consider:
> > >>
> > >> a) move filter - i.e. which positions to roll out
> > >
> > > I would expect to be able to specify these, possibly by
> > loading a .rol
> > > file.
> > >
> > >> b) using GNURoller for plays and cubes in rollouts
> > >
> > > I have to think about this some more. In theory, why not?
> > However, I
> > > do wonder whether it is equivalent to a normal rollout of
> > certain settings.
> > > As I said, I haven't considered this.
> > >
> > >> c) efficiency of the current mt code for fast games in
> > roll outs - we
> > >> lock all threads during accounting
> > >
> > > I'm not up with the mt. Isn't it only active in rollouts?
> > It might be
> > > worth investigating whether you can multithread at the
> > level of the nn
> > > evaluation of a single position, which with all those SSE
> > calls surely
> > > takes up the most time. This would speed up play, analyses and
> > > rollouts to the same degree. You'd have to get an opinion
> > from the mt
> > > guru's as to whether this is feasible and wouldn't incur
> > too much overhead.
> > >
> > >> d) variance reduction - my limited experience tells me that
> > >> variance/time is more or less independent of turning it
> > on/off for 0
> > >> ply rollouts
> > >>
> > > I've just run a simple test on a single position using a 0
> > ply rollout.
> > > Without VR I recorded 589 moves in 1 minute; with VR it was
> > 34 moves.
> > >
> > > It stands to reason that VR would slow things down. With no
> > VR gnubg
> > > only needs to evaluate the actual roll. For VR, gnubg must evaluate
> > > the outcome all possible rolls to see how lucky the actual roll was
> > > compared to the others. This must be roughly equivalent to a 1-ply
> > > lookahead in cost.
> > >
> > > On a 1-ply rollout, the difference is less pronounced: 21
> > trials in 1
> > > minute with VR and 30 without VR. I suppose this is the effect of
> > > caching.
> > >
> > > -- Ian
> > >
> >
>
>
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