Hi all, I have got an idea to create a hardware accelerator for Go playing software. It will probably be a USB (or maybe PCI-Express) device that will be able to do some basic, but very time-consuming for general-purpose CPU calculations very fast. For example load a goban layout, make a number of random moves (as used in Monte-Carlo algorithm) and unload result back to a computer.
As long as it will be a hardware, it will be able to do specified calculations only, but the speed will be very high. For example, making just a copy of the particular goban layout will require typically about 10 nanoseconds only (one internal clock cycle). Calculation of the validity and results of a particular move (including a check for ko and captured stones) will probably take 1 microsecond. This as usual may vary during debugging, but the current move calculation engine draft I've started to develop is about this figures. My nearest aims here are: - to understand a demand from go playing software developers, and - to understand what particular calculation chains are most demanded for hardware acceleration. Dmitry _______________________________________________ Computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://dvandva.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/computer-go
