Marco, the problem for my needs is that you cannot control the CPU cycle. We are trying to have something where you can also enjoy games between your dedicated computers playing against these classic programs at similar conditions and speeds. There is little enjoyment playing dedicated matches against programs that run at 800/1000 Mhz against for example an R30 or in this tournament that I am trying to develop to play against Millennium King. There is for me even less enjoyment if for example Sascha's PC runs twice as fast as mine as at that point we can't even play our programs against each other in tournaments or on Lichess because my WChess for example is then slower than his. There is no control with this. That is the gap that people seem to not understand yet everyone here want to play computer tournaments. (Well at least I do.)

If you can show how you can accurately control speed accross all Pentiums and AMD's then my interest would change very quickly.

Regards
Nick

It is not necessary to check the CPU cycles.
"no 800/1000 Mhz system would be emulated or usable as a balanced opponent of course."
The program emulates 100% of the complete system, for example:
Pentium 90 or max P133 MHz, ideal candidates against Chess Genius Exclusive and The King Element.
100% emulation of a Pentium 90 MHz system is quite simple.
The host PC will use only one core for emulation.
in my case, for example
on my I7 3930k esacore system I can emulate 100% Pentium systems up to 133MHz
On my I7 8550U laptop I can emulate Pentium systems up to 133MMX at 100%.
I make tournaments by myself and I have:
-Chess Genius 48 MHz
-Chess Genius Pro 120 MHz
-Chess Genius Exclusive and The King 300 MHz
For example,
choose the Pentium 90
the emulation is identical on any machine able to emulate it at 100%
So no problem for lichess.

In the end and how to actually have the system.
You have to create the disks, have them recognize the bios of the chosen motherboard, create the partition and format them, and install the desired operating system,
then install the programs and run the tournaments you want.

__________________
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The Problem is that there is no really perfect way:

DosBox can be configured in many ways. Especially the control over the CPU-Cycles may be important for some users. On the other hand not all programs will run in this configuration.

PCEm can be configured very precisely. But as Marco wrote: "The program emulates 100% of the complete system." That may be an advantage as much as a disadvantage. Of course it is very precisely but it is also slower. It takes much more Emulation time to emulate a complete system than only emulate the CPU.

I guess it will need some tests for both ways to find out which way is the best one.

__________________
Mein Profil beim ICCF (International Correspondence Chess Federation)
https://www.iccf.com/player?id=89948&tab=3

I agree with what you say ..
However, I think everyone's aim is to find balanced opponents for The King.
Fortunately, PCem allows you to do it in a precise way, and even if the emulation is slower because it is complete, it allows us to emulate the machines in the same way as their real counterparts, on which the opponents' chess programs are identical in processing speed.

Obviously some programs need emulation equal to a Pentium 200MMx to be balanced against The King.
In this case the use of DosBox or D-Fend Reloaded would be the best choice.
And although the formula 600 x each MHz is quite correct. We can have a more precise feedback by adjusting the CPU cycles taking into account that Mchess Pro 8 on an original Pentium 200MMX develops about 50,000 \ 53,000 positions per second.

Regards
Marco

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Hi Marco,

Thanks based on what you are showing, PCem does seem to be a great solution because of its accuracy to the original. For sure I will try it out sometime soon to see how well it compares to my original 286. 386 and 486 computers.

For this Aegon 97 revisited Millennium tournament though its not going to quite work out. From the hardware that you are showing it does seem to be a tad too slow to give all the Millennium King personalities and Revelation programs that toughest of tough experience.

I keep forgetting as I post 300,000 cpu_cycles that recently in a post with Wolfgang we made some adjustments and came to the conclusion based on some Fritz 2 comparisons and loss of real time clock performance that the cpu_cycle for a Pentium I7 in order work properly should be 225,000 cpu_cycles and that this amounts to the equivalent of a Pentium 2 400 MHz. Here where it was discussed:

https://www.schachcomputer.info/foru...ead.php?t=5848

Der PII ist ca 1.806666666666667 DMIPS pro MHz mal 400 MHz = 723 DMIPS fuer DFend 225,000 cpu_cycles
Revelation XScale = 1.43 DMIPS pro MHz, 500 MHz = 715 DMIPS.
Millennium Cortex-M7 = 2.14 DMIPS pro MHz, 300 MHz = 642 DMIPS

So for this tournament that is planned a P200MMX is just a little too slow to make it as tough as possible for King and Revelation against DOS programs.

So for this tournament I am going to have to stick with DOSBox because of that speed bonus.

Regarding PCem however if it can read original CD's and accept the copy protections in them then PCem seriously becomes a great solution for lesser speed tournaments especially when playing against old dedicated chess computers and as a way to conserve programs which otherwise someday will become extinct if nothing is done about it. So for sure I will build a PCem pretty soon as well.

In about 2 years time if single core were to double in speed you really would have a top solution for King and Revelation. But as soon as that becomes a reality the next fight starts..... which is how to get great opponents for Revelation 2 and Pewatronic

Best regards

Nick

Bei DOSBox Windows 95 bin ich noch am fummeln um durchzublicken wie man ein geschuetztes CD zum laufen bringt. Wenn jemand das schon geschafft hat dann sagt bitte bescheid wie. So kann ich mir dann viel Zeit sparen

Mittlerweile aber war gestern erfolgreich die 2 engines die bei Genius 6.5 (kopiergeschuetztes CD) dabei sind WBNimzo2000b und Crafty 16.3 zu Genius 6.0 zu uebertragen und sie funktionieren ueber Genius 6!



Oben sieht man den Crafty 16.3 und WBNimzo 2000b im hintergrund. Die cpu_cycles habe ich auch zu 225,000 umgestellt damit es fuer das Turnier mit Pentium 2 400 MHz passt.

Hier gelistet sind alle programme die bei mir bis jetzt funtionieren. Froehlich bin ich schon weil ein paar sind schon dabei die ich vorher nicht richtig spielen konnte.

Crafty 16.3
Fritz 5.32
Genius 3
Genius 4
Genius 6
Genius 6 2nd Gen
Mephisto Shredder (14th WMCCC - 1996 Jakarta WM Version)
WBNimzo2000B
WChess 2000
Zarkov 5

Viele Gruesse
Nick

Hallo Franz,

Danke das waere Super. Das hilft aber nur mit Genius 6.5. Es gibt einige wo ich das gleiche Problem erlebe. So wie Chess Academy mit Goliath Blitz 1.0, Virtual Chess 2, Shredder 3, 4 und 5. CM5000, Powerchess usw. Also ich muss immer noch eine Loesung finden fuer virtuellen CD auf Dosbox Win 95 was original disketten liest fuer installaton und beim start wo diese dann zuminendest bei manche beim ersten mal die diskette im Laufwerk suchen. Das ist das "Insert disk" problem.

Gruss
Nick

Immerhin schon ein bißchen moderner als die ganz alten Dinger. Ich habe nur heute gemerkt, das ich zwar alles mögliche an alten Teilen habe, Arbeitsspeicher, CPU, Mainboard, Grafikkarten, Soundkarten, aber überhaupt kein altes CD Laufwerk mehr, falls das jetzige mal kaputt gehen sollte.

Eine alte ATA Festplatte habe ich wohl noch als Reserve.

Hallo Udo,
dann wäre es nach meiner Meinung, der nächste Schritt, zu klären, ob Du den Rechner mit einem selbst erstellten "Bootfähigen DOS USB-Stick", beispielsweise mit "rufus 3.4" erstellt, starten kannst.

Das ist dann ein extrem abgespecktes FreeDOS auf dem Stick, das als Laufwerk C nach dem Start daher kommt.

Auf den Stick kannst Du alles mögliche (Schach-Oldies, Betriebssystem-Installationsdatein...) nachträglich kopieren.

Gruß
Wolfgang

Nun, die einzige zukunftssichere Methode ist wirklich nur jede Art von Kopierschutz (Floppy-Disk oder CD-ROM) dieser alten Programme endgültig zu entfernen, andernfalls werden diese Oldies in der Zukunft einmal völlig verloren sein, denn irgendwann wird man überhaupt kein Disketten- oder CD-Laufwerk mehr bekommen (bzw. an irgendeinen aktuellen Computer anschließen können).

Ich hab das jedenfalls schon lange für ALLE meine alten Schachprogramme getan, die laufen jetzt alle ohne irgendeinen lästigen (oder gar nicht mehr funktionierenden) Kopierschutz immer noch.
Schließlich hab ich ja mal für diese Programme bezahlt, und zwar nicht dafür, daß ich sie nur ein paar Jahre benutzen kann und sie dann einfach nicht mehr funktionieren.

Grüße,
Franz