This is one of two reactions i see repeatedly. The other is to claim
that those who use larger clusters have an unfair advantage and should
be excluded from various competitions ... but we are seeing that one
less often than previously.
As far as i know, i was the first person to use larger clusters in Go,
with a 72 cpu G5 cluster in 2004. Our inefficient architecture at that
time added a layer of global search around GNU Go's local searches,
and added at best 2 stones strength. Since then we have seen Mogo play
public matches with 800 cores. I think the lesson learned is that
hardware never hurts (except by slowing development and debugging
time), but the rate of increase is seemingly small for the amount of
hardware involved.
The real increases at this stage in the development of Go programs are
from algorithms.
Cheers,
David
On 10, Jun 2009, at 9:26 PM, Don Dailey wrote:
My basic observation is that over the several year period I have
been in this forum, I have detected a huge amount of resistance to
the idea that hardware could have anything to do with computer go
strength, despite the fact that it keeps proving to be so. The
resistance is strong enough that we have to explain it way when it
happens, by saying things like we have hit a wall and it won't
happen any more thank goodness.
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