TheEngineList

The Analysis Engines List

SCID maintains a list of the engines you have used, along with an estimated Elo rating (if you guess one; additionally some pages on the Internet offer these values as results from large engine-engine tournaments) and the date when each engine was last used. You can sort the engine list by name, Elo rating, or date. Select the New or Edit buttons to add a new engine to the list or edit the details for an existing entry.

Engine commands and directories

For each engine, you must specify the executable file to run and which directory Scid should run it in.

The most likely cause of engine starting problems is the choice of which directory the engine should run in. Some engines require an initialization or opening book file in their start directory to run properly. Other engines (like Crafty) write log files to the directory they start in, so you will need to run them in a directory where you have write access. If the directory setting for an engine is ".", Scid will just start the engine in the current directory.

So if an engine that should work fine in Scid does not start, try changing its directory setting. To avoid engines creating log files in many different directories, I recommend starting engines in the directory of the Scid User files (this is where the scid.exe file is located on Windows, or ~/.scid/ on Unix); there is a button in the dialog box for editing engine details marked scid.exe dir on Windows or ~/.scid on Unix that lets you set the engine to start in this directory.

If an engine needs additional parameters for startup (e.g. a specific opening book) they can be specified in the Parameters field. Please refer to the engines documentation about the parameters required, if any.

URL allows you to set the engines homepage. This comes in handy to check for updates e.g. or to have a look at recent developments. Pressing the Open... button will open this page in the web browser.

If the engine uses the UCI protocol please mark the associated checkbox. Generally, there are two major engine protocols available today: xboard sometimes referred to as winboard (UCI must not be checked) which many, especially older engines use, and the UCI protocol that can be found in most of the modern chess engines. The main advantage of an UCI engine is, that this protocol allows the user to configure the engines parameters from within his preferred chess GUI like Scid, while for the other engines usually configuration files are used that have to be edited. Therefore, if the engine is an UCI engine, pressing the Configure UCI engine button offers a graphical dialogue where all engine parameters can be tuned to the users liking. This dialogue will look different for each engine as each engine has other parameters that can be set. Most of them will influence the playing style of the engine. Please refer to the engines documentation.