Engine Management

With 'Engines arrow Manage' in the main menu you get to this dialog.

[engine-management.bmp]

In this dialogue you can...

  • select the chess engines you want to use.
  • install chess engines (max. 1500) for Arena and give them
  • necessary parameters, e.g. command line parameters on their way
  • configure options for WinBoard and UCI engines

Now follows a more detailed description of the tabs in this dialogue:

[_] Tab Sheet Select:

The 'Active Engines' are the ones you can play and analyse with. They show you their mainlines and eventually make a move.

The 'Engine favorites' are the one you prefer most.

The list occupying most of the dialogue space shows you information about the configuration of the engines. If you double click on an engine, the engine is selected as one of the active engines.

The columns of this list contain the name of the engine, the type (UCI or WinBoard) the WinBoard-features (A=Analyze mode,E=Edit mode,M=Move now,P=Ponder, O=Opening book, T=Tablebases), the country, the comment you made to the engine, the date of the executable file and the used Arena book. You can sort the list by clicking on the header of each column. The items in this list can be modified under the engine details, see next chapter.

'Available engines' are the ones you installed and perhaps use later as active engines.

'Recently used engines' are the ones you selected and started recently. The last one is on top of the list. If you don't need an entry here, you can select it and press the 'Del' key on the keyboard to delete it.


[_] Tab Sheet Details:

Here you can Install engines and change engine settings.

You create a new engine by clicking 'New'. A new empty engine is created. Now the well-known Windows file-select-box appears and you have to tell Arena, where your nice new WinBoard or UCI engine is located. Please select the exe-file. Arena now undertakes some efforts to gather information, e.g. looks for a init-file according to the Fritz-standard. In most cases you are lucky and your new engine is installed now. If Arena does not know the type of the engine, you have to select the type yourself, WinBoard or UCI. Maybe you could change the name or type in the name of the author, and that's it. Select your fresh engine as an active engine and test it. In the case of problems you have to look for a text file containing information on the configuration parameters of the engine. You find those in the program directory of every decent engine. It's called readme.txt, 'Superengine001.txt' or something else.

Often the command line switch '-xboard' is used for WinBoard engines. This one or other command line options have to be set in the 'Command Line Parameters' field of the details tab.

If this is too awkward for you or you already own quite a collection of engines, I'd advise to use the Installation Wizard . He tries to recognize and configure engines for himself. He scans a directory with all subdirectories for exe-files and lists them. All you have to do is to select the engines you want to install after all. Here you should really select only chess engines, because starting unknown exe-files may result in unforeseeable consequences, like installing trojans or viruses.

If you want to see a flag for the engine's country, you have to fill in the country field with the exact name of the country. A flag with the name of the country must also exist in the Arena/Flags directory.

For the configuration of an engine you have the option to change settings under the following small tab sheets:

Sub-tab sheet "General":

[eng-manag-general.bmp]

Name: The name of the engine under Arena

Author: The programmer of the engine

Command Line: The executable file (. exe) of the engine including the complete path.

Command Line Parameters: Options the engine needs. They are very dependent on the engine. Sometimes not used at all, sometimes a long chain of parameters.

Determine automatically: Scans the file "Engines.ini" for this engine and sets author, command line parameters, country and type. The file "Engines.ini" is regularly updated by the Arena team and has to be in the Arena-folder.

Type: Used protocol: WinBoard or UCI. Don't use Auto detect, it is only for compatibility with older Arena versions.

Logo file: File with the logo of the engine including complete path. You only need this if the logo of the engine is not displayed automatically.

Sub-tab sheet "Special":

Ini-file: Configuration file of the engine. This applies only for WinBoard engines. The file you set here will be shown in the engine configuration if you right-click with the mouse on the analysis lines and then select "Configure [Engine]"

Init String: The commands that are sent to the engine after it has started, e.g. to set some engine options. Note that the engine has to understand these commands. They might be engine-specific. Separate commands by ^n ("n" for newline).

E.g. "pondering_on^nkingscoring_off" sends to the engine :

pondering_on

kingscoring_off

Strength in %: Here you can make the engine weaker. It will use only the given percentage of the time normally used for calculation. A detailed description.

Values absolute (always from white's side): The values are sent by the engine always from the point of view of white, a good position for white always has a high positive value, a bad one a negative value. If this option is not set, the values are sent by the engine always from it's own point of view. In this case a good position for the engine has always a high positive value, a bad position a big negative value.

Website of the Author: Information for you.

Show "Readme.txt": Shows this file, if it is available in the directory of the engine.

Sub-tab sheet "Books":

Arena Engine book: Here you can set, which book in Arena format (abk) the engine should use.

Use Arena Main books with this Engine: If set, the currently used Arena main book will be used.

Sub-tabsheet "Information":

Supported Winboard Features: Here you can set the WinBoard options the engine is supporting. The information is displayed in the list, see previous chapter.

Determine automatically: Scans the file "engines.ini" for available data for this engine and sets the Supported WinBoard Features. The file "engines.ini" is regularly updated by the Arena team.

Rating: Every engine can have a rating figure set by you. The rating figure is displayed in the Arena window title and in the lines above and under the chessboard (if selected), but has no other functions.

Comment: Here you can write down information or your personal remarks about the engine.

Buttons:

[managebuttons.bmp]

  • The button "New" installs a new engine, see above
  • "Duplicate": creates a copy of the currently selected engine, appending [001].
  • "Delete": deletes the currently selected engine, but asks before
  • "Delete All": deletes all engines, but asks before actually doing this
  • "Installation Wizard":, see above or here
  • "Reinstall bundled engines": reinstalls your engines that came with your
  • setup package with which you installed Arena.


[_] Tab Sheet Options:

Start engines with debug-window means that a debug window is displayed every time an engine is started. This is useful for testing engines.

If Engine names replace player names is selected, the engine to move can happily replace the player's name with its own.

"Use internal name" makes Arena use the name the engine has reported itself. If you uncheck this option, Arena the name used by Arena to identify the engine in the engines list.

'Autoflag' means that the game is finished when an engine's or your time is out.

"Additional delay during engine start phase": Arena waits this maximum amount of seconds for engines to initialize. In case you use chess engines that take a long time to initialize (e.g. for tablebases, hash tables or opening books), you should increase this setting. Note: Arena only waites if the time is really needed.

Engines can be loaded with normal or low priority. With low priority the GUI and Windows as a whole is easier to work with if engines are calculating. It is also better to use this mode for engine matches with ponder on. Windows can then distribute the CPU time better to the engines.

Play anthem during load results in playing a wave, mid or midi file during the time the engine is loaded.

Play anthem during game start means the same for every (!) start of a game.


[_] Tab Sheet UCI:

Here you can set common parameters for all your UCI-engines.

You can specify a common hash table and table base size here as well as a common path for the endgame table bases (Nalimov Table bases). Also whether the engines should use their own book, you can set here. It is recommended to use 'Own book' for the engines, because Arena itself currently doesn' t have an own book. The advantage is that you don't have to set these options individually for every engine.

If you do not check a check box here the values you set individually for each engine are used. These values are set by right-clicking on the engine mainlines, configure engine or Ctrl+1 or Ctrl+2 for the first or the second engine, as described in Configuring an Engine .

If you do check a check box here, the values are used, regardless if a different setting has been provided in the engine-configuration dialogue before or not. Settings made here can not be overwritten by the engines.

Click 'resign' if Arena will be resigning the game for the engine. UCI engines cannot resign on their own. This is done when the values submitted by the engine is lower than the value given here, for the number of moves given here.

"UCI Filter" lets Arena ignore useless information that is sent by engines during the first 5 seconds of a search. Important information like mainlines and the best moves will of course always be processed. During the first 5 seconds many engines send a lot of information to Arena, which may become very slow because of this. This has a big impact especially at short time controls. You can restrict "UCI Filter" to be used only in tournaments, if you select this option.


[_] Tab Sheet Winboard:

Here you can set common parameters for all your Winboard engines.

Note: These parameters require the engines to support the changes made for WinBoard 4.4.xx, indicated in blue in the Winboard specification.

You can specify a common maximum memory size in MegaBytes here. The engine individually has to choose how to divide the RAM to the tables it wants to use, like Tablebase cache, or Hashtables.

Also you can limit the number of CPU cores a Winboard engine shall use.

The common path for the endgame table bases (Nalimov, Scorpio, Gaviota and others) can be set here.

"Infinite mode emulation":The level 'infinite' does not exist for WinBoard engines. It has to be emulated for them. The engines are run with the settings given here in Fischer time control mode (level 0 9999 9999).

The option "Extended 'level' command for WB engines" allows Arena to send multiple different time controls in tournament mode.

See also: Configuring an engine.