This page contains answers to common questions you
may have, along with some tips
and tricks that we have found useful and presented here as questions. This page
will grow over time as new questions and answers are added.
- What spec PC is needed for PC HIARCS
12 UCI?
-
How do I install PC HIARCS 12 UCI on
my PC?
-
How do I activate the HIARCS 12 UCI engine?
-
What is new about HIARCS 12 UCI?
- How do I setup HIARCS 12 UCI
under Arena?
- How do I setup HIARCS 12 UCI under
Fritz/Hiarcs (Chessbase)?
- How do I setup HIARCS 12 UCI under
Chessbase 9?
-
Can I install HIARCS on more than one computer?
-
Do I need a new license key every time I change my
hardware?
- Will you give free updates to HIARCS 12 UCI
customers?
- What are the strongest settings for HIARCS 12 UCI?
- How much stronger is HIARCS 12 than HIARCS 11?
- How much stronger is the HIARCS 12 MP version?
- Can the HIARCS 12 MP version run on single
processors?
- What levels are there for the
beginner and average club player?
- How can I get HIARCS' to use its own
opening book?
The HIARCS 12 UCI series requires a PC running MS Windows 95,
98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP or Vista with a UCI compatible GUI (a GUI is not included in the
package).
Shortly after your payment to purchase HIARCS is received you will be sent
an email with your personal license key to activate HIARCS and the download
details including a link to the download. Simply click on this link and save
your download (please note where you save the downloaded installer). Please
make sure you only use the installer on your computers and only those you
intend to use HIARCS 12 UCI. The reason for this is that the license key is
for your personal use only and displayed within the product. Once downloaded
and ready to install please locate and run the installer, e.g.
SetUpHIARCS12SPUCI
Double click the installer to run it. Once the installer is running please follow the straight forward
instructions to install the chess engine.
Please note the folder that the installer installs HIARCS 12 UCI in.
Once the installer has finished you will find the HIARCS 12 UCI engine, book, license and readme files
etc. will then be automatically installed on your machine in the folder you
selected.
Once the engine is installed you will need to create/add the HIARCS 12 UCI engine into your
favourite Chess GUI so you can use it. Please see the other question/answers below on this
page for how to do this.
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After you purchase of HIARCS 12 UCI we will generate a personalised license name and key which will be emailed
to you.
First download the product and install it on your computer.
Now there is two main ways to activate the engine:
1) Activation before adding into a chess GUI - This is probably the
simplest way to activate the HIARCS engine. Open the folder in which HIARCS
12 is installed. To do this open a file browser and navigate to the folder
containing the HIARCS 12 UCI chess engine you want.
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 UCI is
C:\Program Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 SP UCI
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 MP UCI is
C:\Program Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 MP UCI
Please note on Winx64 "Program Files (x86)" will be used instead of "Program
Files".
Once you reach the installed Hiarcs 12 folder you will see the following:
Double click on the ACTIVATE-H12MP (or ACTIVATE-H12SP) batch file to pre-activate the HIARCS
engine by entering you license information in the following dialog.
alternatively you can activate using this method...
2) Activation when adding into chess GUI - Add/create the HIARCS UCI
engine in your chosen Chess GUI. When you load the engine in your chosen GUI
for the first time you will be presented with a dialog in which to enter your
license name and key.
Please note some chess GUIs have a very short time out when Adding chess
engines and this can make entering the key difficult. In that case either
select to Activate Later and enter the license key when loading the engine in
the GUI after it is created or use option 1 above.
Once your key is correctly entered (or copy/pasted) HIARCS 12 UCI will be
activated.
HIARCS 12 UCI is a major new release in the HIARCS series. It contains the
following major new features:
Customers also will receive the Paderborn chess engine which can be
activated and used in the same way as HIARCS 12 but gives a distinctively
different style of play and search.
HIARCS 12 UCI contains the new protection mechanism which is highly
flexible for the customer and makes activation very straightforward.
With Arena 1.1 running select the Engines menu and select the "New Engine"
menu item as below:
You will then see a UCI/Windboard dialog box, select UCI and click OK
Now in the file browser navigate to the folder containing the HIARCS UCI
engine you want.
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 UCI is C:\Program
Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 UCI
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 MP UCI is
C:\Program Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 MP UCI
Please note on Winx64 "Program Files (x86)" will be used instead of "Program
Files".
Select the HIARCS 12 SP UCI (or HIARCS 12 MP UCI) engine to add it.
The engine will now be available in the Engine Management screen. You can
now start the HIARCS 12 UCI from the Engines menu
as follows:
Once the engine is first started if you have not pre-activated it you will
be asked to enter your name and license key to complete the activation of the engine.
You can read more about activation here HIARCS 12 UCI
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With Fritz/Hiarcs running select the Engine menu and choose the "Create UCI
Engine" menu item.
In the Setup UCI Engine dialog that appears select browse
Now navigate to the folder containing the HIARCS 12 UCI engine you want.
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 UCI is C:\Program
Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 UCI
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 MP UCI is
C:\Program Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 MP UCI
Please note on Winx64 "Program Files (x86)" will be used instead of "Program
Files".
Select the HIARCS 12 SP UCI (or HIARCS 12 MP UCI) engine to add it to the
GUI. If you have not pre-activated the engine you will be asked to activate by
entering your license name and key here. You can activate later if you prefer
or follow the instructions in our activation section.
The HIARCS 12 UCI engine will then be populated in the Setup UCI Engine dialog.
You can now select "Change Main Engine" from the Engine menu and then
choose the HIARCS 12 UCI engine from the Load Engine dialog.
Once loaded you can start playing with the HIARCS 12 chess engine.
With Chessbase9 running open a Board window and select the Engine menu and choose the "Create UCI
Engine" menu item.
In the SetUp UCI Engine dialog that appears select browse
Now navigate to the folder containing the HIARCS 12 UCI engine you want.
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 UCI is C:\Program
Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 UCI
The default installation location for HIARCS 12 MP UCI is
C:\Program Files\HIARCS Chess\HIARCS 12 MP UCI
Please note on Winx64 "Program Files (x86)" will be used instead of "Program
Files".
Select the HIARCS 12 SP UCI (or HIARCS 12 MP UCI) engine to add it to the
GUI. If you have not pre-activated the engine you will be asked to activate by
entering your license name and key here. You can activate later if you prefer
or follow the instructions in our activation section
You can now select "Add Kibitzer..." from the Engine menu and then choose
the HIARCS 12 UCI engine from the Load Engine dialog.
Once loaded you can start playing with the HIARCS 12 chess engine.
Yes, HIARCS 12 is licensed for use on up to three of your personal computers simultaneously
provided they are your computers and HIARCS is only used for your personal
use.
Each HIARCS 12 UCI has its own personally identifiable license name and
key. Please keep this key private as you will need it to run free updates when
available.
No!
Both the SP and MP versions now have a flexible license key which is
not affected when you change your hardware or computer. So you can have peace
of mind that you can always use your HIARCS 12 purchase.
I certainly hope to provide some free updates. If progress is made with the
HIARCS 12 UCI series it is my intention to release updates to HIARCS 12 UCI
customers. For example if the 64 bit version of HIARCS 12 shows a significant
increase in chess strength I will release this version to HIARCS 12
customers.
However for obvious reasons I would not release a new HIARCS 13 engine for
free.
The default settings are believed to be the strongest although it is very
true to say we did not have time to test all the settings to be absolutely
sure. The changes from default settings which are most likely to have the
potential to be stronger than HIARCS 12 UCI default are
- Sharp PV ON has been shown in our recent long tests to be clearly better
at long time controls of a minute a move or longer on fast hardware. We
strongly recommend this setting is used for rating purposes in long time
controls matches in the SSDF/CEGT/CCRL rating matches.
- Some testers think Optimistic Search is better OFF at longer time
controls but we have insufficient data to be sure either way.
- The other setting worth experimentation is the Combinations ON setting
as extra work has been done in HIARCS 12 on this. Recently it has done well
in our testing too.
- Against most programs that are weaker using the Hiarcs Draw value
(anti-contempt factor) can give even better results. The value of this
Hiarcs Draw value tells HIARCS to either prefer draws (positive values) or
avoid them (negative values). Against weaker programs a Hiarcs Draw Value of
-15 can be quite effective.
Please let us know your results and if you have found a better default for
HIARCS even if it is only against certain rivals.
You can find a full list of the settings and options on our
HIARCS UCI options page here.
This is a very difficult question to answer accurately because the strength
improvement varies depending on the opponent HIARCS faces and the time control
being used. It also requires literally thousands of games against various
opponents under strictly controlled conditions to determine the Elo
improvement.
Time will tell what the true strength increase is, we are confident that
HIARCS 12 is significantly stronger than HIARCS 11.
We have played some matches with the finished versions on our
HIARCS Rating/Games page.
The multiprocessor version of HIARCS 12 UCI when running on multi-core/processors
(of course!) gains a good speed up factor. The engine seems to scale quite
well and on two processors is about a factor of x1.8 times faster and on four
processors it is about 3 times faster than its single
processor little brother. On 8 core machines we have seen a speed up of about
a factor of 6.
In terms of Elo strength improvement I would imagine that on a dual
core/processor system it would be roughly about 50 Elo stronger and on a 4
processor system 90 Elo stronger. While a 8 core system would increase the
strength by about 130 Elo.
If you do any comparisons please let us know the results!
The current maximum number of CPUs supported is 8 but we hope to raise this
in the future once higher CPU support has been verified.
Yes, absolutely. The HIARCS 12 MP version can run on a single processor
system as well as the single processor version of HIARCS 12 UCI. With HIARCS
12 MP you have the flexibility that if you upgrade your computer to a
multiprocessor version in the future you are safe in the knowledge HIARCS 12
MP will utilise your new computer's CPU hardware to the full.
Purchasers of HIARCS 12 MP also receive a license for HIARCS 12 SP.
Even if you have a multiprocessor or multicore (e.g. Dual Core) system you
can instruct HIARCS 12 MP to use one or more processors up to a max of 8 CPUs.
HIARCS UCI offers set Elo strength play with customised
opponents from beginner at 1250 Elo to Super Grandmaster at 2900+ Elo.
Depending on the GUI the way this Limited Strength option is employed varies.
The OwnBook engine parameter is on by default. This means HIARCS UCI will
access its own book and even learn good and bad openings if the book learning
option is on. However, you MUST turn the GUI book off or load an empty book so
that Hiarcs will be able to play from its own book. Otherwise the GUI will
play the book moves from another GUI book and not ask the Hiarcs engine for a
move in the opening.
Unfortunately the engine book cannot be displayed in a GUI because the UCI
protocol does not allow for it. Although we have requested a change to allow
this it seems the UCI protocol author does not want book functions to be
available through the UCI interface.
To provide the HIARCS opening book so each GUI can read and display it, it
would require that we produce the book in numerous different and contrasting
formats which would be very time consuming. However, we will look to make a
Chessbase CTG format HIARCS book available to customers if there is demand for
this.
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Please read our