Downloads

current versions

Thanks to Jeremy Bernstein for the Mac OS version.

Tento update opravuje niektore chyby z verzie 1.6
- mrznutie motora na dvoj-socketovych systemoch
- zdvojene vypisovanie variant v rezime multiPV
- obcasne padanie pri analyze s tablebazami
- kontrola rozsahu hlbky pri pouziti prikazu "sf store"
- linux verzia bezi aj na starsich distribuciach
ako bonus som pridal UCI parameter "king safety weight"

This is a bugfix release. The following bugs were fixed:
1) engine freezing with dual-socket systems
2) same line displayed 2x in multipv mode
3) occasional crashes with tablebases
4) proper range checking of the depth parameter in "sf store" command
5) linux version now runs on older distributions

as a bonus there is a new UCI option for king safety weight.

Critter

Originally Critter was developed in Delphi, but Delphi has not still 64bit compiler.
That is why the program from version 0.42 was rewritten to C++ using a BitBoard technology.
Such concept gives possibility to reach top performance.
Gaviota table bases are used. Richard thinks GTB is a better choice for developers than Nalimov, because it has a more liberal license.

The author

Taken from Frank Quisinsky's interview  http://www.schach-welt.de/interviews/richard-vida  

Richard Vida was born in 1977. He has studied computer science and now he's working as software developer/consultant.
His first encounter with computer chess was back in 80's microcomputer era, playing against Colossus 4.0 on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
Since then for many years he wasn't interested in chess at all (except for occasional games in our local pub) until he started working on Critter in late 2008.
Since then he became addicted to chess programming  

Richard is a weak chess player. It was a sort of satisfaction when his program was good enough to win consistently against his stronger playing friends.
Critter is not yet mature enough to have a distinctive playing style and relies more on tactics.

Richard Vida doesn't think he could make a living from computer chess. It is only a hobby and Critter will be always free of charge.  

Richard has not done any GUI-specific tweaks. He is using mainly Arena for normal games. For ultra fast engine-engine matches he developed a custom auto tester