A pair of questions about engines and analysis on Scid vs. PC

Hello!

I'm using Scid vs. PC on Linux (Opensuse 13.2 32bits). I tried to run an analysis using Stockfish DD but I had 2 problems:

-A lot of times it annotates an empty variantion this way "()"

-Some variations looked absolutely wrong (bad moves)

I have seen on the Internet that the hash was 32 Mb by default and I read thats way too small, taht it should 2048 or so. So I'd like you to help me tune the rest of parameters to get Stockfish to analyse my games properly.

Is it normal the "()" thing?

Finally, I'd like to ask you what engine you usually use, since I hace installed Critter, Crafty, Stockfish, Phalanx, Scidlet,... but i don't know which one is better.

Right now I'm experimenting with the engine tournament. We'll see which engine wins!

Thank you in advance!

Hi,

Critter and Stockfish are the only engines you need for analysis. The others are handy for playing games against - they have different personalities.

Are you using an opening book? You can use polyglot to make a good one from your database.

How are you analysing a game?

Method:

Open database.

Double click on the game you want.

Hit F2 - this will start your number 1 engine and take you to the engine window. If this is not Critter or Stockfish use 'tools/analysis engines' to rectify that.

Click on the little notebook & pen. It opens the analysis window.

All the defaults should be ok.

(

But you can:

Set the 'time betweeen moves in seconds' to 10 or more. Maybe much more :)

The 'use book' option can be set to your fav book - if you have made one.

)

Then just hit 'ok' and walk away.

 If that gives you a load of ()s, or bad moves - it must be a glitch in the matrix!

Thank you for your advice asm64. I'll try both stockfish DD and critter 1.6 to see which is better.

I used the method you say, but changed a lot the default options, so I'll try the default. Maybe my problems are related to that.

I'll write my results when I get them to work. Thanks!

From what i'm experiencing, when stockfish gives an annotation or valoration of a move but there is no variation to write, it writes "()" with no variation inside. I'll try Critter to see if the same happens.

Has anyone notice this on Scid vs. PC / Stockfish?

I just realised I'm using an old version (4.11) and there's a newer one (4.13). I'll try installing the new one!

I'm using Critter and I'm happy with it, some day i'll try stockfish again.

4.13 is the first to really have a working depth annotation feature, and is definitely worth installing. Stockfish goes fine with it.

I've noticed a bug with 4.13 when using the auto-annotate feature. If you have a variation that includes a checkmate the annotation will stop or move on to the next game (if that is how you have it configured), without finishing the mainlines.

This is on the 64bit Windows version.