Hearthranger - How to speed up on low spec computer in vision a.i. ?

* Speed up on low spec computer may make bot to do more misplays, it's the cost to speed up.

The following settings are only valid for Hearthranger version greater than v.9.1.0.0 (including v.9.1.0.0).

By default we have set all proper values for these important parameters, unless you have a very slow computer, recommend you not to change it.

Open the ini file under Hearthranger root directory:

HearthRanger.ini

Create the following sections and values.

[VICPU]

CPUNumber=2

ThreadPerCPU=4

CriticalWaitTime=1000

CalcMaxDepth=2

[BOT]

MaxMemoryUsage=1024

AlwaysSyncBoard=false

Explaination:

[VICPU]

Vision a.i. searches best move by software unit called VICPU, each VICPU is independent to search for best board value, with different strategies.

Each VICPU has its own running threads, by default each VICPU has 6 threads, and by default vision a.i. has 3 VICPU number.

So by default, vision a.i. uses 3 VICPU x 6 threads = 18 threads to work, now we reduce it into 2 VICPU x 4 threads.

VICPU number should not smaller than 2, and ThreadPerCPU should not smaller than 4, or bot may do many misplays.

CritialWaitTime is a critical value for bot calculating, by default it's 3000, on low spec computer, we set it to 1000, it should never be smaller than 1000.

CalcMaxDepth is how deep should bot to simulate in search tree, for example, the depth of the following search results is 3.

16:21:22:INFO::----NODE PATH---- 1

16:21:22:INFO::-- ROOT NODE -- (value= 44.14*0 + 31.54*1 = 31.54)

16:21:22:INFO::(value= 50.12*0 + 37.22*1 = 37.22) Houndmaster [4|4|4]  ->Place to board right side           --------> depth = 1.

16:21:22:INFO::....(value= 55.4*0 + 53.96*1 = 53.96) Houndmaster [4|3|4]  -> River Crocolisk [4|5|2]           --------> depth = 2

16:21:22:INFO::........(value= 58.64*0 + 57.2*1 = 57.2) River Crocolisk [4|5|2]  -> Jaina Proudmoore [0|24|0]     --------> depth = 3

By default it's 6, on low spec computer we set it to 2, so bot will not continue to calculate out River Crocolisk [4|5|2]  -> Jaina Proudmoore [0|24|0] in the above sample.

[BOT]

If your computer's system memory is restricted, you can set MaxMemoryUsage to a lower value, it's the maximum memory bot can use, if it exceeds, bot will stop calculating further, by default it's 1024 megabytes.

By default AlwaysSyncBoard is true, set to false is only should be used by very slow computer, it may caused many misplays, since bot will not check board is synced or not with calculation result.

If your computer is very fast, it may get better performance if you set CPUNumber to a greater value than default number 6, but it can not guarantee it, since search tree is growing exponential, in the beginning no matter how many VICPU you have, the speed is almost the same.

Restart bot to take effect if you changed these values.