Page 1 of 8
Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 7:36 pm
by AartBik
I just released version 2.5 of Chess for Android at the Android market. Besides a few minor improvements, this release introduces the ability to play engine-engine matches automatically.
To perform a match:
- Long-press, import UCI engine, and select primary engine (or skip this step to play against the built-in Java engine)
- Long-press, engine-engine match, and select secondary engine to start the match
This will play 10 games from random openings at the moves-per-second level selected. During the match, current standing is displayed and engine analysis output is shown at the bottom of the window. Afterwards, the full match annotated with engine analysis can be found in the file /data/local/eng/match.pgn (use adb pull /data/local/eng/match.pgn to move the file from the phone to your computer). I recommend keeping the phone connected to the USB cable during a match for power.
Information on the setup is given at
http://www.aartbik.com/MISC/uchess.html.
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:51 pm
by thorstenczub
heureka it works.
now we need many different (!) engines. not only stockfish versions
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:14 pm
by Michel Van den Bergh
thorstenczub wrote:heureka it works.
now we need many different (!) engines. not only stockfish versions
Basically any engine available on Linux can be _trivially_ ported to Android.
If you are lazy: just compile a static binary with your favorite gcc-ARM toolchain (e.g. CodeSourcery).
If you want to do a tiny bit more work: the latest version of the Android NDK can create a gcc-ARM toolchain specifically
tailored for Android. In that way you can create dynamically linked binaries.
Some obvious candidates for porting are Fruit, Toga, Robbolito...
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:08 pm
by Michel Van den Bergh
Installing engines in Chess for Android currently seems a bit too difficult for ordinary users (it needs the SDK).
It would be more natural if users could simply copy an engine to a specific directory on the sdcard and CfA would
pick it up from there. This would be similar to the way one copies music to the phone. So people are familiar with that.
Unfortunately the sdcard is mounted noexec so one can not start the engine directly from the sdcard.
But perhaps CfA could have an option "Install an engine" which would copy the engine (once) from the sdcard to internal storage and then run it from there. Of course one then would also need the option "Uninstall an engine".
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:21 am
by AartBik
Michel Van den Bergh wrote:Installing engines in Chess for Android currently seems a bit too difficult for ordinary users (it needs the SDK).
You hit the nail on the head. The current approach is cumbersome, but it seems the only viable way to deal with security issues on a wide variety of phones (simpler ways that worked on one did not work on others). Nevertheless, I am going to ponder over simpler ways to install engines. All suggestions welcome.
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 6:51 am
by AartBik
AartBik wrote:Nevertheless, I am going to ponder over simpler ways to install engines.
Inspired by Michel's suggestion, I may have found a much easier way to install UCI engines (without having to install the adb utility). If this works on all phones, expect an update soon!
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:27 pm
by Michel Van den Bergh
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:00 pm
by Michel Van den Bergh
Unfortunately this binary seems to segfault on my phone after a while. I tried both with the Google toolchain and with the CodeSourcery one.
Very weird.
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:18 pm
by AartBik
Michel Van den Bergh wrote:Here is an android binary for Toga 1.4.1SE.
Nice! Thanks!
Re: Chess for Android 2.5
Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 6:13 am
by AartBik
Michel Van den Bergh wrote:Here is an android binary for Toga 1.4.1SE.
Quick engine-engine match.
Code: Select all
Chess for Android Match 2011
1234567890
1 Stockfish 2.0 110111½½11 8.0/10
2 Toga II 1.4.1SE 001000½½00 2.0/10