Chess Optimizations

Question

ok, so i have been working on my chess program for a while and i am beginning to hit a wall. i have done all of the standard optimizations (negascout, iterative deepening, kille

Answer 1

As far as tips, I know large gains can be found in optimizing your move generation routines before any eval functions. Making that function as tight as possible can give you 10% or more in nodes/sec improvement.

If you're moving to bitboards, do some digging on rec.games.chess.computer archives for some of Dr. Robert Hyatts old posts about Crafty (pretty sure he doesn't post anymore). Or grab the latest copy from his FTP and start digging. I'm pretty sure it would be a significant shift for you though.