Also remove some fallback templates that prevent a
compile error in case the user runs 'make icc-profile-popcnt'
from a non supported machine.
We want to loudly fail in that case instead of silently
fallback in a non-popcount compilation.
Updated documentation too.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Thanks to Eric Mullins we have now endian friendly
pop_1st_bit() and also is removed the need to use
-fno-strict-aliasing compiler option with GCC.
Speed is almost as fast, very small difference if any in
perft test, so I assume almost no difference in real games.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Currently minimum split depth is set automatically to 6
when number of CPUs is more than 4. I believe this is a bad
idea since for example my quad (4CPU with hyperthreading) is
detected as 8CPU computer. I've manually lowered down the number
of Threads, but so far I have played all games with Minimum
Split Depth set to 6!
Since 4CPU computers with hyperthreading are quite common and
8 CPU computers extremely rear (I expect we can get a direct
jump to 16 or 32 cores), this automatic adjusting is likely
to do more harm than good. Add a note in Readme.txt, so that
those rear 8CPU owners can manually tweak the "Minimum Split
Depth" parameter
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
This is mainly intended to allow 64 bit compiles on any
system and avoid to crash when the binary, compiled on a
box where POPCNT is not supported, is run on a Core i7
system or similar CPU.
What could happen is that when compiled in a standard 64 bit
system, because the correct headers for the POPCNT intrinsic
are not found, the compiler creates dummy bit count functions
instead, these are never called at runtime on the machine where
Stockfish has been compiled. But if we run the same binary on a
Core i7 system, because POPCNT is detected at run time, the dummy
bitcount functions will be called giving false results that will
crash the application.
Note that would be possible to fallback on software bit count in
these cases, but this is even more subtle because POPCNT path is not
optimized so that we have an application working but at sub-optimal
speed, so better to crash, at least user is loudly warned that there
is something wrong.
If, instead, Stockfish is compiled on a Core i7 system with POPCNT
enabled, then if the PGO compile has been done properly, the same binary
will run at optimal speed _both_ on the Core i7 machine and on any other
64 bit standard machine. This is the ideal mode for binary distribution.
Finally this patch disables bsfq support under Windows, because it seems
inline assembly is not supported both by MSVC and by Intel Windows version.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
This greatly simplifies bitboard.cpp that now has only two setups,
respectively for 32 and 64 bits CPU according to IS_64BIT define
that is automatically set but can be tweaked manually in
bitboard.h
No functional change both in 32 and in 64 bits.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco Costalba