Help: ChessBase 10 or ChessBase Light 2009 Premium?

What's the big difference between these two options? I can see that the "big database" is included in ChessBase 10, but not in ChessBase Light 2009 Premium, but both have access to the online database, so wouldn't that make them equivalent?

http://www.chessbase.com/products/chessbase10/overview.htm

Also, if I choose to get ChessBase 10, which one should I get? There is the Starter, the Mega, or the Premium.

http://www.chessbase.com/shop/productlist.asp?product=dp&subd=cb&user=&coin=

Who can tell me the differences? Please include not just the technical differences, but what one can do or not do with each of the choices.

Last question: I've read that you can get ChessBase with Rybka instead of Fritz... how does this work? (Also, do I care?)

One more question: For any of these DBs, how much space do they require on the hard drive?

The underlying program in each case is virtually identical.  The main difference is in the archive of games which come with it and the type of account you get on the Playchess server.  Chessbase Light 2009 Premium does not come with any games, but you can run searches and download games from their server or TWIC.  The Starter Package comes with 3 issues of Chessbase Magazine and Big Database which includes a huge number of games but no annotations.  The Mega Package comes with 6 issues of Chessbase Magazine and Mega Database which includes 65000 games annotated by Kasparov, Anand, Ftacnik et al.  The Premium package comes with the same extras plus a correspondence game archive, tablebases for endgames and a premium subscription to Playchess (incl. video and audio reports) for a year.

Which one you get is up to you.  The annotations tend to be slightly more detailed than Informant, but perhaps not as thorough as New In Chess or a book.  Most of the annotators are German GMs, but there are a fair number of annotated games from SuperGMs.  Tim Harding's UltraCorr is a better correspondence game archive than Chessbase's, but Chessbase's isn't too bad for starters.

All versions of the Chessbase program come with the Fritz engine, Crafty and a few other engines.  You can buy Rybka in a seperate package with the Fritz graphical user interface, a playing program different from the database/opening repertoire oriented Chessbase Light/10.

Mega Database 2010 uses up about 2 gigabytes.  Big Database is a bit smaller.  The database that comes with the Fritz/Rybka program is probably only around 500 MB.

For what it's worth, Chessbase 10  (the whole thing) is 3.6 GB, and I don't remember using any of the features that Chessbase 10 has and ChessBase Light doesn't over the years (except neglible ones like setting uci engine as default and stuff).

The feature that I use most is that "Merge games on-the-fly into an opening tree" which both have. The difference mostly seems to be about the offline database, I'm not sure how well the online database works, never even tried it because I have my own system of manually updating my databases.

About Rybka and Fritz, yes, in my opinion it would definitely matter, Rybka is much stronger.

Thanks for the detailed reply. So how different is the online DB from the Big or Mega DB? Also, what is TWIC?

philidor_position: "my own system of manually updating my databases" --> can you explain further? How do you get updates delivered to you, and how do you update them in your DBs?

The online database is updated on a regular basis, so it has more of the newer games.  I have downloaded games using Chessbase from their server, but the search function does have its idiosyncracies, and it sometimes fails to connect.  The games in the online database are not annotated.

TWIC stands for The Week In Chess, Mark Crowther's web site which has up-to-the-minute game downloads for most major tournaments and matches around the world.

I do it exactly the way Rigamagician has mentioned, I first download (I had downloaded before having Chessbase) a free and huge database almost as good as the CB database (if you don't care about annotations) like this one:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/icofybase/

and then go to the TWIC website and download all the new games about every 3 months or something (you can do that every week or even day too).

You can merge any databases together in chessbase, and most importantly, you can then eliminate duplicate games if there are any.

TWIC is free? So if I'm getting this right, if you don't care about the annotations, then there's nothing you gain by having a local copy of one of the large databases.

Or are there games in the big or mega which are not in the TWIC or sourceforge DBs?

Yes TWIC is free. Every Tuesday you have the games of the week before.

About the db, perhaps the question is what are you looking (waiting) for ?

The " theory opening " move fast so perhaps all the games before 2005 is not so interesting ?

If you play not so usual opening most of the games will not interest you.

[for example in my db I have the A04-39, A41-41, B06 from the free huge ecofy, from the free db TWIC 1983 to something like 2000 (don't remember exactly) and from the free pgn mentor (about specific player like Pavel Blatny for example). At the beginning I had more than 4 millions games, then after delete twins, ECO I don't care and lines that GMI I like said wrong....I have now 19019 games but a valuable db).]

I forgot to say perhaps you can first try SCID (a very good free soft for db), download free base (hugeecofy, TWIC, pgn mentor for example) and look/use a little.

After you can really do your own choice.

What setup to you all have? I've got just about 2-3 weeks to get this all up and running. While I'm not a fan of saying it... cost is not a huge deal for me. If I'm buying a 900$ laptop to run it on, why skimp on the 100$ or 150$ for the DB/software.

That being said, any recommendations? I'm buying a PC because of the restrictions on what's available for the Mac.

Scid works on mac os.

Icofy is missing a lot of game headers (event, site, elo ratings), and TWIC only covers recent games.  Mega database comes with a player encyclopedia which allows you to filter the games of titled players quickly, and has biographical data and pictures, etc.  Also downloading games from Chessbase's online server and TWIC does take a fair amount of time.  Big or Mega Database offers generally thorough and accurate coverage of over-the-board games, and for correspondence, there is UltraCorr.

The main software I've been using lately to keep track of my opening repertoire is Chessbase Light Premium 2007.  I have a wide range of game archives including Mega Database 2010, UltraCorr 3, TWIC, chesspublishing, Sahovski's Informants and Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Chessbase's Opening Encyclopedia, as well as a bunch of paperback opening monographs from Quality Chess, Everyman, Batsford, etc.

Between all of these game sources, how does one do de-duplication?

Chessbase Light/10 has a "Find double games" function.  Free archives like Icofy tend to have messy headers, so you may still end up with a few doubles, but you can finetune the settings to weed out most of them.

Thanks guys for all the help. Any modifications to the below recommendations on laptop speed, disk space, RAM, video card, sound card, etc?

Here's the recommendation from chessbase.com for the chessbase 10 starter package.

System requirements: Minimum: Pentium 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows7, Windows Vista or Windows XP (Service Pack 2), DVD ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9. Recommended: PC Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Windows Vista 64, GeForce8 graphics card (or compatible) with 256 MB RAM or higher, 100% DirectX compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVD ROM drive.

Here's the recommendation from chessbase.com for Rybka 4.

System requirements: Minimum: Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows Vista, XP (Service Pack 3), DirectX9 graphics card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows-Media Player 9, internet access (playchess. com, updates and activation). Recommended: PC Intel Core 2 Quad, 2.4 GHz, 3 GB RAM, Windows Vista or Windows 7, DirectX10 graphics card (or compatible) with 512 MB RAM or more, 100% DirectX10 compatible, sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVD ROM drive and internet access (playchess.com, updates and activation). 
The activation of the program requires internet access.

So why does the website suggest a dedicated video card then? Is it for video lessons or something?

64 bit vs 32 bit: I'm guessing that both Fritz and Rybka have been optimized for 64-bit versions of windows? It makes a lot of sense, since the bitboards can be now in a single int.

Anybody know the answer?

I think Fritz doesn't have any particular version for 64 bit, so it should work fine on both 64 and 32. Rybka however does have different versions for 32-bit and 64 bit.

I think you can ignore the video card requirement, it's for 3D view, which is very unsuccessful in my opinion, I never use it.

Ram is also not that important, engine performance is mostly about cpu.