Official release version of Stockfish 17.1
Bench: 2030154
---
Stockfish 17.1
Today, we have the pleasure to announce Stockfish 17.1. As always, you can
**freely** download it at [stockfishchess.org/download][1] and use it in the
[GUI of your choice][2].
Join our [Discord server][3] to get in touch with the community of developers
and users of the project!
Quality of chess play
In our testing against its predecessor, Stockfish 17.1 shows a consistent
improvement in performance, with an [Elo gain of up to 20 points][4] and
winning close to 2 times more game pairs than it loses.
Update highlights
New speedtest command
The new `speedtest` command benchmarks your computer's performance (measured in
nodes per second) using a realistic and stable test. To run it, you'll need
[command line access][5]—give it a try and share your results with the
community!
Improved hardware support
Stockfish is [no longer limited to 1024 threads][6] and will allow users to
specify whatever their system is capable of. Additionally, hardware such as
ppc64 and Loongson is now better supported at build time.
Bug fixes for tablebase support
Our previous release introduced improved engine lines (principal variations)
ending in mate as soon as a mate score is announced. A side effect of this
improvement was a [rare corner case][7] involving cursed tablebase wins, only
relevant in correspondence chess when the 50-move rule does not apply, which
has now been fixed. Relatedly, [time management][8] has also been improved to
avoid potential time losses.
Shoutouts
Download page redesign
We've redesigned the [download page][1] to address unclear wording and simplify
a previously cluttered experience. The page now features a modernized layout,
streamlined navigation, and clearer guidance to help you select the right
binary for your system.
Fishtest framework
Our testing framework has been improved in various ways, both on the worker
side, including the adoption of [Fastchess][9] as a new game manager, and on
the server side, such as streamlined configuration. The reliable availability
of testing resources is key for the progress of the engine.
Thank you
The Stockfish project builds on a thriving community of enthusiasts (thanks
everybody!) who contribute their expertise, time, and resources to build a free
and open-source chess engine that is robust, widely available, and very strong.
We would like to express our gratitude for the [12k stars][10] that light up
our GitHub project! Thank you for your support and encouragement – your
recognition means a lot to us.
We invite our chess fans to [join the Fishtest testing framework][11] to
contribute compute resources needed for development. Programmers can contribute
to the project either directly to [Stockfish][12] (C++), to [Fishtest][13]
(HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python), to our trainer [nnue-pytorch][14] (C++ and
Python), or to our [website][15] (HTML, CSS/SCSS, and JavaScript).
The Stockfish team
[1]: https://stockfishchess.org/download
[2]: https://official-stockfish.github.io/docs/stockfish-wiki/Download-and-usage.html#download-a-chess-gui
[3]: https://discord.gg/GWDRS3kU6R
[4]: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/67e7d2fd6682f97da2178fbd
[5]: https://official-stockfish.github.io/docs/stockfish-wiki/UCI-&-Commands.html#speedtest
[6]: 652a8874b5
[7]: 6c7c5c7e47
[8]: 0f9ae0d11c
[9]: https://github.com/Disservin/fastchess
[10]: https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/stargazers
[11]: https://official-stockfish.github.io/docs/fishtest-wiki/Running-the-Worker.html
[12]: https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish
[13]: https://github.com/official-stockfish/fishtest
[14]: https://github.com/official-stockfish/nnue-pytorch
[15]: https://github.com/official-stockfish/stockfish-web
`speedtest [threads] [hash_MiB] [time_s]`. `threads` default to system concurrency. `hash_MiB` defaults to `threads*128`. `time_s` defaults to 150.
Intended to be used with default parameters, as a stable hardware benchmark.
Example:
```
C:\dev\stockfish-master\src>stockfish.exe speedtest
Stockfish dev-20240928-nogit by the Stockfish developers (see AUTHORS file)
info string Using 16 threads
Warmup position 3/3
Position 258/258
===========================
Version : Stockfish dev-20240928-nogit
Compiled by : g++ (GNUC) 13.2.0 on MinGW64
Compilation architecture : x86-64-vnni256
Compilation settings : 64bit VNNI BMI2 AVX2 SSE41 SSSE3 SSE2 POPCNT
Compiler __VERSION__ macro : 13.2.0
Large pages : yes
User invocation : speedtest
Filled invocation : speedtest 16 2048 150
Available processors : 0-15
Thread count : 16
Thread binding : none
TT size [MiB] : 2048
Hash max, avg [per mille] :
single search : 40, 21
single game : 631, 428
Total nodes searched : 2099917842
Total search time [s] : 153.937
Nodes/second : 13641410
```
-------------------------------
Small unrelated tweaks:
- Network verification output is now handled as a callback.
- TT hashfull queries allow specifying maximum entry age.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5354
No functional change
Official release version of Stockfish 17
Bench: 1484730
---
Stockfish 17
Today we have the pleasure to announce a new major release of Stockfish. As
always, you can freely download it at https://stockfishchess.org/download and
use it in the GUI of your choice.
Don’t forget to join our Discord server[1] to get in touch with the community
of developers and users of the project!
*Quality of chess play*
In tests against Stockfish 16, this release brings an Elo gain of up to 46
points[2] and wins up to 4.5 times more game pairs[3] than it loses. In
practice, high-quality moves are now found in less time, with a user upgrading
from Stockfish 14 being able to analyze games at least 6 times[4] faster with
Stockfish 17 while maintaining roughly the same quality.
During this development period, Stockfish won its 9th consecutive first place
in the main league of the Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC)[5], and the 24th
consecutive first place in the main events (bullet, blitz, and rapid) of the
Computer Chess Championship (CCC)[6].
*Update highlights*
*Improved engine lines*
This release introduces principal variations (PVs) that are more informative
for mate and decisive table base (TB) scores. In both cases, the PV will
contain all moves up to checkmate. For mate scores, the PV shown is the best
variation known to the engine at that point, while for table base wins, it
follows, based on the TB, a sequence of moves that preserves the game outcome
to checkmate.
*NUMA performance optimization*
For high-end computers with multiple CPUs (typically a dual-socket architecture
with 100+ cores), this release automatically improves performance with a
`NumaPolicy` setting that optimizes non-uniform memory access (NUMA). Although
typical consumer hardware will not benefit, speedups of up to 2.8x[7] have been
measured.
*Shoutouts*
*ChessDB*
During the past 1.5 years, hundreds of cores have been continuously running
Stockfish to grow a database of analyzed positions. This chess cloud
database[8] now contains well over 45 billion positions, providing excellent
coverage of all openings and commonly played lines. This database is already
integrated into GUIs such as En Croissant[9] and Nibbler[10], which access it
through the public API.
*Leela Chess Zero*
Generally considered to be the strongest GPU engine, it continues to provide
open data which is essential for training our NNUE networks. They released
version 0.31.1[11] of their engine a few weeks ago, check it out!
*Website redesign*
Our website has undergone a redesign in recent months, most notably in our home
page[12], now featuring a darker color scheme and a more modern aesthetic,
while still maintaining its core identity. We hope you'll like it as much as we
do!
*Thank you*
The Stockfish project builds on a thriving community of enthusiasts (thanks
everybody!) who contribute their expertise, time, and resources to build a free
and open-source chess engine that is robust, widely available, and very strong.
We would like to express our gratitude for the 11k stars[13] that light up our
GitHub project! Thank you for your support and encouragement – your recognition
means a lot to us.
We invite our chess fans to join the Fishtest testing framework[14] to
contribute compute resources needed for development. Programmers can contribute
to the project either directly to Stockfish[15] (C++), to Fishtest[16] (HTML,
CSS, JavaScript, and Python), to our trainer nnue-pytorch[17] (C++ and Python),
or to our website[18] (HTML, CSS/SCSS, and JavaScript).
The Stockfish team
[1] https://discord.gg/GWDRS3kU6R
[2] https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/66d738ba9de3e7f9b33d159a
[3] https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/66d738f39de3e7f9b33d15a0
[4] https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/wiki/Useful-data#equivalent-time-odds-and-normalized-game-pair-elo
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish_(chess)#Top_Chess_Engine_Championship
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish_(chess)#Chess.com_Computer_Chess_Championship
[7] https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5285
[8] https://chessdb.cn/queryc_en/
[9] https://encroissant.org/
[10] https://github.com/rooklift/nibbler
[11] https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases/tag/v0.31.1
[12] https://stockfishchess.org/
[13] https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/stargazers
[14] https://github.com/official-stockfish/fishtest/wiki/Running-the-worker
[15] https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish
[16] https://github.com/official-stockfish/fishtest
[17] https://github.com/official-stockfish/nnue-pytorch
[18] https://github.com/official-stockfish/stockfish-web
- Capitalize comments
- Reformat multi-lines comments to equalize the widths of the lines
- Try to keep the width of comments around 85 characters
- Remove periods at the end of single-line comments
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5469
No functional change
Previously, we had two type aliases, LargePagePtr and AlignedPtr, which
required manually initializing the aligned memory for the pointer.
The new helpers:
- make_unique_aligned
- make_unique_large_page
are now available for allocating aligned memory (with large pages). They
behave similarly to std::make_unique, ensuring objects allocated with
these functions follow RAII.
The old approach had issues with initializing non-trivial types or
arrays of objects. The evaluation function of the network is now a
unique pointer to an array instead of an array of unique pointers.
Memory related functions have been moved into memory.h
Passed High Hash Pressure Test Non-Regression STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/665b2b36586058766677cfd2
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 476992 W: 122426 L: 122677 D: 231889
Ptnml(0-2): 1145, 51027, 134419, 50744, 1161
Failed Normal Non-Regression STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/665b2997586058766677cfc8
LLR: -2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 877312 W: 225233 L: 226395 D: 425684
Ptnml(0-2): 2110, 94642, 246239, 93630, 2035
Probably a fluke since there shouldn't be a real slowndown and it has also
passed the high hash pressure test.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5332
No functional change
Allow for NUMA memory replication for NNUE weights. Bind threads to ensure execution on a specific NUMA node.
This patch introduces NUMA memory replication, currently only utilized for the NNUE weights. Along with it comes all machinery required to identify NUMA nodes and bind threads to specific processors/nodes. It also comes with small changes to Thread and ThreadPool to allow easier execution of custom functions on the designated thread. Old thread binding (WinProcGroup) machinery is removed because it's incompatible with this patch. Small changes to unrelated parts of the code were made to ensure correctness, like some classes being made unmovable, raw pointers replaced with unique_ptr. etc.
Windows 7 and Windows 10 is partially supported. Windows 11 is fully supported. Linux is fully supported, with explicit exclusion of Android. No additional dependencies.
-----------------
A new UCI option `NumaPolicy` is introduced. It can take the following values:
```
system - gathers NUMA node information from the system (lscpu or windows api), for each threads binds it to a single NUMA node
none - assumes there is 1 NUMA node, never binds threads
auto - this is the default value, depends on the number of set threads and NUMA nodes, will only enable binding on multinode systems and when the number of threads reaches a threshold (dependent on node size and count)
[[custom]] -
// ':'-separated numa nodes
// ','-separated cpu indices
// supports "first-last" range syntax for cpu indices,
for example '0-15,32-47:16-31,48-63'
```
Setting `NumaPolicy` forces recreation of the threads in the ThreadPool, which in turn forces the recreation of the TT.
The threads are distributed among NUMA nodes in a round-robin fashion based on fill percentage (i.e. it will strive to fill all NUMA nodes evenly). Threads are bound to NUMA nodes, not specific processors, because that's our only requirement and the OS can schedule them better.
Special care is made that maximum memory usage on systems that do not require memory replication stays as previously, that is, unnecessary copies are avoided.
On linux the process' processor affinity is respected. This means that if you for example use taskset to restrict Stockfish to a single NUMA node then the `system` and `auto` settings will only see a single NUMA node (more precisely, the processors included in the current affinity mask) and act accordingly.
-----------------
We can't ensure that a memory allocation takes place on a given NUMA node without using libnuma on linux, or using appropriate custom allocators on windows (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/memory/allocating-memory-from-a-numa-node), so to avoid complications the current implementation relies on first-touch policy. Due to this we also rely on the memory allocator to give us a new chunk of untouched memory from the system. This appears to work reliably on linux, but results may vary.
MacOS is not supported, because AFAIK it's not affected, and implementation would be problematic anyway.
Windows is supported since Windows 7 (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/processtopologyapi/nf-processtopologyapi-setthreadgroupaffinity). Until Windows 11/Server 2022 NUMA nodes are split such that they cannot span processor groups. This is because before Windows 11/Server 2022 it's not possible to set thread affinity spanning processor groups. The splitting is done manually in some cases (required after Windows 10 Build 20348). Since Windows 11/Server 2022 we can set affinites spanning processor group so this splitting is not done, so the behaviour is pretty much like on linux.
Linux is supported, **without** libnuma requirement. `lscpu` is expected.
-----------------
Passed 60+1 @ 256t 16000MB hash: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6654e443a86388d5e27db0d8
```
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <0.00,10.00>
Total: 278 W: 110 L: 29 D: 139
Ptnml(0-2): 0, 1, 56, 82, 0
```
Passed SMP STC: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6654fc74a86388d5e27db1cd
```
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 67152 W: 17354 L: 17177 D: 32621
Ptnml(0-2): 64, 7428, 18408, 7619, 57
```
Passed STC: https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6654fb27a86388d5e27db15c
```
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 131648 W: 34155 L: 34045 D: 63448
Ptnml(0-2): 426, 13878, 37096, 14008, 416
```
fixes#5253
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5285
No functional change
This is another refactor which aims to decouple uci from stockfish. A new engine
class manages all engine related logic and uci is a "small" wrapper around it.
In the future we should also try to remove the need for the Position object in
the uci and replace the options with an actual options struct instead of using a
map. Also convert the std::string's in the Info structs a string_view.
closes#5147
No functional change
This aims to remove some of the annoying global structure which Stockfish has.
Overall there is no major elo regression to be expected.
Non regression SMP STC (paused, early version):
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/65983d7979aa8af82b9608f1
LLR: 0.23 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 76232 W: 19035 L: 19096 D: 38101
Ptnml(0-2): 92, 8735, 20515, 8690, 84
Non regression STC (early version):
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/6595b3a479aa8af82b95da7f
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 185344 W: 47027 L: 46972 D: 91345
Ptnml(0-2): 571, 21285, 48943, 21264, 609
Non regression SMP STC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/65a0715c79aa8af82b96b7e4
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) <-1.75,0.25>
Total: 142936 W: 35761 L: 35662 D: 71513
Ptnml(0-2): 209, 16400, 38135, 16531, 193
These global structures/variables add hidden dependencies and allow data
to be mutable from where it shouldn't it be (i.e. options). They also
prevent Stockfish from internal selfplay, which would be a nice thing to
be able to do, i.e. instantiate two Stockfish instances and let them
play against each other. It will also allow us to make Stockfish a
library, which can be easier used on other platforms.
For consistency with the old search code, `thisThread` has been kept,
even though it is not strictly necessary anymore. This the first major
refactor of this kind (in recent time), and future changes are required,
to achieve the previously described goals. This includes cleaning up the
dependencies, transforming the network to be self contained and coming
up with a plan to deal with proper tablebase memory management (see
comments for more information on this).
The removal of these global structures has been discussed in parts with
Vondele and Sopel.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4968
No functional change
- remove the blank line between the declaration of the function and it's
comment, leads to better IDE support when hovering over a function to see it's
description
- remove the unnecessary duplication of the function name in the functions
description
- slightly refactored code for lsb, msb in bitboard.h There are still a few
things we can be improved later on, move the description of a function where
it was declared (instead of implemented) and add descriptions to functions
which are behind macros ifdefs
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4840
No functional change
This introduces clang-format to enforce a consistent code style for Stockfish.
Having a documented and consistent style across the code will make contributing easier
for new developers, and will make larger changes to the codebase easier to make.
To facilitate formatting, this PR includes a Makefile target (`make format`) to format the code,
this requires clang-format (version 17 currently) to be installed locally.
Installing clang-format is straightforward on most OS and distros
(e.g. with https://apt.llvm.org/, brew install clang-format, etc), as this is part of quite commonly
used suite of tools and compilers (llvm / clang).
Additionally, a CI action is present that will verify if the code requires formatting,
and comment on the PR as needed. Initially, correct formatting is not required, it will be
done by maintainers as part of the merge or in later commits, but obviously this is encouraged.
fixes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/3608
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4790
Co-Authored-By: Joost VandeVondele <Joost.VandeVondele@gmail.com>
The commit removes all uses of ICC's __INTEL_COMPILER macro and other
references to ICC. It also adds ICX info to the compiler command and
fixes two typos in Makefile's help output.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4769
No functional change
This is a cleanup PR that prepares the automatic checking of missing or
superfluous #include directives via the include-what-you-use (IWYU) tool
on the CI. Unfortunately, IWYU proposes additional includes for
"namespace std" although we don't need them.
To avoid the problem, the commit removes all "using namespace std"
statements from the code and directly uses the std:: prefix instead.
Alternatively, we could add specific usings (e.g. "using std::string")
foreach used type. Also, a mix of both approaches would be possible.
I decided for the prefix approach because most of the files were already
using the std:: prefixes despite the "using namespace std".
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4772
No functional change
Made advanced Windows API calls (those from Advapi32.dll) dynamically
linked to avoid link errors when compiling using
Intel icx compiler for Windows.
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4467
No functional change
this makes it easier to compile under MSVC, even though we recommend gcc/clang for production compiles at the moment.
In Win32 API, by default, most null-terminated character strings arguments are of wchar_t (UTF16, formerly UCS16-LE) type, i.e. 2 bytes (at least) per character. So, src/misc.cpp should have proper type. Respectively, for src/syzygy/tbprobe.cpp, in Widows, file paths should be std::wstring rather than std::string. However, this requires a very big number of changes, since the config files are also keeping the 8-bit-per-character std::string strings. Therefore, just one change of using 8-byte-per-character CreateFileA make it compile under MSVC.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4438
No functional change
This patch adds more debugging slots up to 32 per type and provide tools
to calculate standard deviation and Pearson's correlation coefficient.
However, due to slot being 0 at default, dbg_hit_on(c, b) has to be removed.
Initial idea from snicolet/Stockfish@d8ab604
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4354
No functional change
Removed sprintf() which generated a warning, because of security reasons.
Replace NULL with nullptr
Replace typedef with using
Do not inherit from std::vector. Use composition instead.
optimize mutex-unlocking
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4327
No functional change
If a global function has no previous declaration, either the declaration
is missing in the corresponding header file or the function should be
declared static. Static functions are local to the translation unit,
which allows the compiler to apply some optimizations earlier (when
compiling the translation unit rather than during link-time
optimization).
The commit enables the warning for gcc, clang, and mingw. It also fixes
the reported warnings by declaring the functions static or by adding a
header file (benchmark.h).
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4325
No functional change
