Russell Sherwood Monday, February 27, 2017
We would all love to have a Monster PC to suppot our analysis efforts but the reality is that the vast majority of players have relativly modest hardware to work with.
So a few areas to consider:
- Have you shut down all other applications when analysing? If you have other programmes running this can reduce your nps by 50%
- Is the RAM the maximum your machine can utilise? This is a very cheap way to upgrade performance and simple to install (If you are not confident in doing this local computer shops can do this in a few minutes)
- Is the Hash setting on your engine correct. Often engines can have different optimal settings but as a rule of thumb its worth setting to half your overall RAM. Some testing is sensible to see which gives the best results.
- If you are using Tablebases - do you have a SSD drive? This can make 20-30 difference in speed.
- How many Cores is your engine set to? Exact settings are a long article in itself but if you want to max out then either all your cores or All minus one gives maximum pwoer. Of course this is not necessarily the best way to do things! Do remember than the more cores you utilise the more stress you are putting on the processor - a bit like I can drive a mini at 100mph all the time but it will wear out quicker.
- If using Chessbase consider if Smart CPU should be checked. This can make a signifant difference to processor utilisation.
Anyway thats a few ideas for now - more advanced ideas another time!
