Major Updates to NCM

Thank you @pokerfelt! Sadly there is no manual yet. I’ve promised several people that I’d add one but have yet to do so. Here’s my quick take on topics it should cover – is there anything else you’d like to see?

  1. engines / hardware / thinktime / relation to playing strength
  2. settings
    a. brief overview of all settings
    a. in-depth section on multi-pv
    a. in-depth section on syzygy
    a. in-depth section on contempt
  3. saved boards
  4. stockfish & stockfish dev builds
  5. lczero, networks, and the gpu
  6. brief description of the other engines
  7. detail about how engines generally work: search tree, depth, nps, etc.
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Mr chendry you too can add the new engine, ceres is a derivative of lc0, try it please.

Question, this doesn’t happen very often, but once in a while it would make a bad move, not totally bad like a blunder, but if it was two points ahead, it would make it a tie or something. I would then search the same position again after the game and it would make a different move that isn’t an inaccuracy. Can you please fix this? Sorry if I’m not clear, English is not my first language.

Hey Darren! I think I understand. Next time it happens, or if you happen to remember a position where it happened before, can you PM or email me (chendry@nextchessmove.com) the position as well as the hardware (single core / 20-cpu core / GPU) and engine that you used? I’d be glad to take a look!

Hello there,
Would it be possible to add Alpha Zero to the Other Engines?

Hey @Cesar12 – this is the first time I’ve heard of Ceres – thank you for bringing it up! I’ve briefly studied the code and it seems to be built for Windows, although I’m reading about some limited success building it for Linux. (NCM runs all engines on Linux.) I’ll se what I can do!

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@Lordlennyfacediscord - Google hasn’t made AlphaZero available publicly, so I can’t add it as an engine. Have you tried LcZero? It’s an open-source reproduction of AlphaZero based on the same techniques that Google used.

According to the LcZero Wiki, LcZero’s current networks “have since surpassed Alpha Zero’s strength.”

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Dark mode? I was using this at night and the brightness made me think of this. Is it possible to quickly add this?

Yup! Dark mode is there, but it’s a hidden feature because honestly I’m not happy with the look. But if you want to try it out, you can use the “d” key on the keyboard to toggle it. (Make sure you click on some whitespace first to make sure that no control has the focus.)

I actually really like Dark Mode on NCM. It could be refined a bit but overall it shouldn’t be made a hidden feature. One thing that can be fixed is the black knight for the piece placer. It’s a bit pixelated by the right side but it’s a small error.

Do you plan to add a button to go to the beginning of a full PGN game, or at least default to the beginning of the game instead of the end?

When I upload a 100 move game to analyze, the only way to get to the start is to click the back arrow 200 times!

Please add this feature! I’m beggin’ ya! :smiley:

:slight_smile: Yes, we need to add this. I don’t want to change much in the UI as part of this release, but “go to start” and “go to end” buttons need to be there. So far my favorite solution is to shorten the “Castling Availability” checkboxes (make them side-by-side) to free up vertical space and then bring the arrows down a line, adding the “go to start” and “go to end” buttons on either side.

If you happen to be using the desktop website, in the meantime, you cat hit Shift+LeftArrow or Shift+RightArrow to skip to the beginning / end.

A little glitch, if you press reset when it says black to move, it changes to white to move. This is kind of annoying when I forget and I waste time.

Glitch? Reset is for resetting your game and white starts the game.

I’m not sure every request going to 20 cpu core for paid members because i used 30 minute thinking time and latest dev build many time against 1 cpu core all result going draw some time ncm giving blunder move also any chance to increase thinking time or playing strength ?
as a paid member we have no profit for using 20 cpu core it playing strength same like 1 cpu core