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TheAnalysisWindow
What Does It Do?
The Analysis window displays the analysis of [TheActivePosition] by [TheChessEngine], along with information about the analysis' status. It can show the end position of the first line variation, and supplementary information about the analysis' status. This window also provides functionalities to annotate chess games.
What Does It Look Like?
Like this:
The tab at the top of the window shows the name of the engine you selected. In the screenshot, it's Stockfish 6 32 bits. Below the tab you can see information about the analysis status: "depth," "nodes," etc. Then you can see the two line variations the engine is currently analyzing. At the bottom of the window, you can see a menu of buttons, which are analysis functionalities.
What is an Analysis?
An analysis consists of a number of line variations with their respective evaluation by [TheChessEngine]. Evaluations are in centipawns, i.e. one hundredth of a pawn unit. A negative sign indicates that the position favors Black.
Whenever the board changes, SCID sends [TheActivePosition] to [TheChessEngine] to get evaluated. This analytical process lasts on as long as [TheChessEngine] is running.
To start or stop [TheChessEngine], press F4.
What Is the Analysis Status?
A list of information about the analysis at the top of the Analysis window. It looks like this.
It is the information you can see at the top of the window, in bold. By default, the status bar shows the estimate of the position (rounded to tenth of centipawns) and the following:
Depth - the number of half-moves reached by the engine;
Nodes - the number of positions analysed for the current result;
Time - the amount of seconds (or micro-seconds) spent to reach the current evaluation.
By clicking on the Show Engine Info button, the status bar also shows:
Current - the current move analyzed by the engine (it can differ from the one shown in the line variations);
TB hits - the number of times the engine reached a position in its Tablebases;
Nps - the number of nodes per seconds, which indicates the analysis speed;
Hash Full - the percentage of the Hash table that is filled.
CPU - the current CPU load.
The supplementary information is for advanced users of engines. Refer to Computer Chess Forum for more information on this, and, more generally, on how to configure a chess engine.
What Are All These Icons?
At the bottom of the window, there is a row of buttons:
When the mouse hovers over them, a pop-up appears. Here's a short description of each functionalities:
Start/Stop engine - Starts or stops the analysis process. Each time the engine is stopped and restarted, the analysis starts anew, without "remembering" the results of its previous run. To preserve the analysis, use the Add buttons - see below.
Lock engine to current position - SCID stops sending any changes from [TheCurrentPosition] to the engine and let it analyze the current position in background; other SCID functions can be used while the engine is locked to a position.
Add move - To add the best move chosen by the engine as a new move in the current game, press the Add move button .
Add variation - If the whole main line of the engine should be added just use the Add Variation button
Add all variations - Adds all the variations the engine is analyzing. This works when the engine analyzes multiple lines.
Lines - Sets up the number of lines the engine will analyze at the same time. The best line is shown on top and is highlighted. Recent UCI engines provide that very useful functionality; if your engine does not provide this feature, you won't be able to change the number of lines. Note that the more lines the engine analyzes, the less time it allocates to each line, which may decrease its performance.
Annotate - Opens up the [TheAnnotateDialog] to create automated annotations. See [TheAnnotateDialog] for more information. The Annotate button is only available for the first engine in [TheEngineList]. If another engine is opened, this button will be locked.
Training - Allows you to play moves against the engine. The time for each move is fixed, and the analysis results are not shown when training mode is on. (This feature does not work well for me.)
Finish game - Opens up [TheFinishGameDialog], where you can select two engines to simulate a possible end of the game. This function is only available for the first engine in [TheEngineList].
Show engine info. - See above.
Update. - This button does not seem to do anything.
Low CPU Priority. - If an engine is using too much CPU time and affecting the use of SCID or other applications, turning on the Low CPU priority button may help; it gives the engine a low priority for CPU scheduling. On Windows, engines are run on low priority by default. Note that on Unix systems this priority can not be set back to normal.
Show analysis board - This very useful feature displays a small chessboard showing the end position of the current best line found by the engine.
NB. The insertion of variations from the analysis window will also add the name of the engine as a comment to the game.
How Many Engines Can I Run Concurrently?
Two engines can run simultaneously. This allows playing computer c. computer match-ups. For more information
Since the quality of an evaluation depends upon computing power, using many engines at the same time comes at a cost.
Can I Hide the Current Analysis?
Yes! Right-clicking in the Analysis window will hide the analysis. To show the analysis, right-click again.
In this mode, only the current evaluation is shown in the status line.
Related
Wiki: HowToAnnotateGames
Wiki: TheActivePosition
Wiki: TheAnnotateDialog
Wiki: TheChessEngine
Wiki: TheCurrentPosition
Wiki: TheEngineList
Wiki: TheFinishGameDialog
The Hash Full information seems to always indicate 0%. Either this is a bug, or there is something I do wrong.
I never succeeded in making the Training button work.
Does anyone know if there is a way to pick a single move that you would like analyzed in scidvspc?
Last edit: reignofkings 2020-08-06
In SCID, you play the move, and the Chess engine will analyze it.
SCID is its own project, but I doubt it's very different.
I understand that. I was wondering if there was a way to analyze only a single move for example only 3.Nc3 instead of all possible moves. In chess oks aquarium it allows you to select the moves you want analyzed individually. I was wondering if scid had a similiar function.
Last edit: reignofkings 2020-08-06
It's a GUI distinction without any functional difference. The Chess engine analysis will be the same whether your selection is played on the board or in some list. In SCID, simply add the variation in the comments of your game. Unless Aquarium can modify the engine's code, it's the same.
One little trick I find useful is to select 2 lines for the Chess engine when analyzing. They will change, but the allocation of resources will show you if there is stability in the engine's evaluation.
Thank you bstp for your comments. I guess i just like the idea of eliminating moves that only waste the engines power. Being able to select the only moves the engine will analyze just seems quicker and more efficient than going through each individual move one by one and comparing eval, especially when there are maybe 5 or 6 moves your are considering for a single turn. Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions. I am trying to completley move over from windows to linux and I just started using scidvspc.
Last edit: reignofkings 2020-08-06
One way to select the only moves you want analyzed is to add the variation in comments and to jump to the position you want. That way your engine will analyze only that position.
Best of luck!
Yeah that should do just fine for my purposes. Thank you bstp for your input. I really appreciate this kind of community, where you can ask a question and have helpful responses from people like yourself. Thank you very much!
I have one more question for you bstp. Do you know how to install ttk themes to be used in scid on a linux system?
No, but you can always ask the Mailing List:
https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/MailingList/
"Do you know how to install ttk themes to be used in scid on a linux system?"
I have a BSD system and all I had to do was create a directory
~/.scid4.7/themes and unzip everything in there.
$ ls ~/.scid4.7/themes
LICENSE scidgreen/ scidsand/
pkgIndex.tcl scidgrey/ scidthemes.0.9.3.zip
readme.txt scidmint/ scidthemes.tcl
scid/ scidpink/
scidblue/ scidpurple/
Regards
Maurice thank you for your reply. I just realized that I am using scidvspc instead of scid. I still tried to do it like you said. I created a themes folder in my scidvspc directory and unzipped the files but still not working.
At some point you'll need to go ask the proper project.
Are you sure themes are not working? I do not use scidvspc but my
point is that board colours are not changed in themes. Highlighting
colours in the gamelist, for instance, do change.
Regards
On 07/08/2020, bstp benoitstpierre@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
I understand that board colors and pieces are a seperate function from themes and I have no issues there. I am trying to add a dark theme to the list of available themes under Options>Themes. The only available ones at the moment are just clam,alt,default, and classic.