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Anything new in the engine is generally tested as an experimental option which can be turned on or off at compile time or run time. Some “experimental” options such as the break-in code are no longer experimental but are enabled by default.
This section can be skipped unless you are interested in the experimental options.
Moreover, some configure options were removed from the stable release. For example it is known that the owl extension code can cause crashes, so the configure option –enable-experimental-owl-ext was disabled for 3.6.
The term “default” must be clarified, since there are really two sets of defaults at hand, runtime defaults specified in config.h and compile time default values for the runtime defaults, contained in configure (which is created by editing configure.in then running autoconf. For example we find in config.h
/* Center oriented influence. Disabled by default. */ #define COSMIC_GNUGO 0 /* Break-in module. Enabled by default. */ #define USE_BREAK_IN 1
This means that the experimental cosmic option, which causes GNU Go to play a center-oriented game (and makes the engine weaker) is disabled by default, but that the break-in module is used. These are defaults which are used when GNU Go is run without command line options. They can be overridden with the run time options:
gnugo --cosmic-gnugo --without-break-in
Alternatively you can configure GNU Go as follows:
./configure --enable-cosmic-gnugo --disable-experimental-break-in
then recompile GNU Go. This changes the defaults in config.h, so that you do not have to pass any command line options to GNU Go at run time to get the experimental owl extension turned on and the experimental break-in code turned off.
If you want to find out what experimental options were compiled into your GNU Go binary you can run gnugo --options to find out. Here is a list of experimental options in GNU Go.
experimental-break-in
. Experimental break-in code
(see Break Ins). You should not need to configure this because
the break in code is enabled by default in level 10, and is turned
off at level 9. If you don't want the breakin code just play at
level 9.
cosmic-gnugo
. An experimental style which plays a center
oriented game and has a good winning rate against standard GNU Go,
though it makes GNU Go weaker against other opponents.
large-scale
. Attempt to make large-scale captures.
See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnugo-devel/2003-07/msg00209.html
for the philosophy of this option. This option makes the engine slower.
metamachine
. Enables the metamachine, which allows
you to run the engine in an experimental mode whereby it forks
a new gnugo
process which acts as an “oracle.” Has no
effect unless combined with the --metamachine run-time
option.
Other options are not experimental, and can be changed as configure or runtime options.
chinese-rules
Use Chinese (area) counting.
resignation-allowed
Allow GNU Go to resign games.
This is on by default.