Re: [Bug-gnubg] Simpler PRNG

[Michael Petch]

On 2015-01-14 7:52 AM, Louis Zulli wrote:
> Saw this recently in the chess program Stockfish. Worth a look? Better 
> randomness than MT:
> 
> "This patch replaces RKISS by a simpler and faster PRNG, xorshift64* proposed
> by S. Vigna (2014). It is extremely simple, has a large enough period for
> Stockfish's needs (2^64), requires no warming-up (allowing such code to be
> removed), and offers slightly better randomness than MT19937."
> 
> Paper: 
> http://xorshift.di.unimi.it/
> 

Thanks for the information. I am pretty sure I saw Philippe Michel at
one point mention information regarding his findings with profiling. My
understanding that the random number generation (with MT) is much of a
bottleneck within the context of rollouts.

"slightly better" randomness, but from the end user perspective within
the context of backgammon it likely wouldn't be noticeable (if at all)
even over a lot of matches.

I'm in agreement with Ian Shaw that a decrease in the options of random
number generators is probably more ideal. If others wish to weigh in on
this I am more than happy to listen.

Thanks,
-- 
Michael Petch
GNU Backgammon Maintainer / Developer
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