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Subject: Re: For the Record: Effects of Larger Hash Tables

Author: Gerd Isenberg

Date: 11:05:48 12/03/05

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On December 03, 2005 at 11:56:42, Andreas Guettinger wrote:

>On December 03, 2005 at 11:01:46, Paul Jacobean Sacral wrote:
>
>>I would appreciate a couple of clarifying remarks as well, because this is a
>>topic that's difficult to understand if you are not a progammer. Bacically, I
>>was studying explanations of this in the past but didnt't understand all of it,
>>and also do not remember all of it.
>>
>>My question is:
>>
>>How come that some solving times of test positions are worse (longer) with
>>bigger hash tables, than with smaller hash tables?
>>
>>Yours truly Paul J. Sacral
>
>Can you give an example?
>The size of the hashtable should not make a considerable difference in solving
>time, except if the engine clears the hashtable in analysis mode at the
>beginning of the search, which could take 1 or 2s on slow hardware. (Note during
>normal gameplay hastables usually don't get cleared.)
>Per position (in the search tree) it takes normally 1 (written ONE) probe per
>hashtable, doesn't matter if the hashtable is 1Mb or 1Gb.
>As a banal example, if you have a file register in your office, and you want to
>lookup file no. 56, it doesn't mater if you have 100 or 1000 files stored, you
>just walk to the shelf and take file number 56.
>
>regards
>Andy

With changed table size you obviously map positions to other entries due to
hasIndex ::= someHashkey % tablesize. Two positions with disjoint slots with
some table size may share one slot with a bigger hash size. This is enough to
explain completely different search behaviour - and for some patological cases
even a longer solving time.

Gerd



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