Click on individual versions below to see their release notes.
Development
- Updated Qt to 6.9.1
- Palamedes now needs AVX2 support from CPUs (released after 2013 except Pentiums and Celerons)
Core
- Evaluators: NNs can now handle state size above 2000
GUI
- NeoAnalysis: Added progressbar and stop button. Search is now run on a different thread and can be stopped
- NeoAnalysis: Fix crash when id is plakoto
- NeoAnalysis: Fix match score inside id when opening from board
- Start game: Starting from XGID now gets the score of the match from the ID
- Benchmark: Added stop button to stop the process
- Options: Added number of decimals for analysis values
- About → Help: Manual file now opens correctly
- PlakotoDBs: When "big" version is not found try to load "small" version. Also moved files to new PlakotoDBs folder
Development
- Updated Qt to 6.8.3
- Palamedes now needs FMA support from CPUs (released after 2013 except Pentiums and Celerons)
Core
- Algorithms: Added pruning nets to Analysis and Play
- Algorithms: Added cache to Analysis and Play
- Combined prune + cache give the following improvements on average:
- Portes: 3ply: 2X, 4ply: 2X, 5ply: 3X
- Plakoto: 3ply: 1.7X, 4ply: 1.8X, 5ply: 2.5X
- Fevga: 3ply: 1.6X, 4ply: 1.8X, 5ply: 3X
- Algorithms: "Huge" filter now up to 32 moves (from 20)
- XGID: added error checking for illformed IDs
GUI
- Start game dialog: Doubling cube text on the left
- NeoAnalysis: new way of showing stats, added more stats
- NeoAnalysis: detect correctly "All rolls (00)" in XGID
- NeoAnalysis: fixed bug: filters where not copied from settings
- New options for dice colors and shadows. Shadows can be disabled and the color of dice can be changed to be the same as the player's checker.
- Match play: fixed the start game player bug on the second game of a match when the player plays first.
- Added palamedes folder in help, added icons in other items in the help menu.
Core
- Algorithms: added search for all rolls
- Algorithms: added some optimizations for search, new map for NegaTTExpectimax (30% less memory, 15% faster)
- Evaluators: added pubeval evaluator for portes/backgammon games
GUI
- Fixed major bug in match play: match options were not applied
- NeoAnalysis: all rolls of a position can now be analyzed and shown in a single table. Rolls are sorted by value and the weighted average is also calculated.
- NeoAnalysis: removed bold column
- NeoAnalysis: selected move can not be expanded if terminal
- NeoAnalysis: the played move is now analyzed at the max-ply depth
- Options: fixed dice tab
GUI
- New game: Switched to new search algorithms (IDDFS). Games can be played up to 4ply
- NeoAnalysis: Alternate row color in table is now a lighter gray
- NeoAnalysis: Added column "Diff" which shows the value differences from the best move. Thresholds and colors can be adjusted in options
- NeoAnalysis: Added One-Sided PinDB Evaluator when applicable in plakoto positions
- Start new game: Non-advanced users can play up to 4ply
- Options: Added new filters, removed old AI search options
- Options: AI resign thresholds now configurable
- Board: Better positioning of the checker(s) on the bar (closer to board's center)
Development
- Updated Qt to 6.8.1
- "Engines" category is now split in several subcategories starting with Core: Core, Core:Evaluators, Core:Algorithms
Core
- Backgammon: Fixed score (3, -3) when losing player was on bar
- Takhteh: Rule "No hit and run" fixed to "No hit and run for cover"
GUI
- New form for analyzing positions with features: Analysis up to 5ply, Configurable match options, Configurable search algorithm, Dice roll can be changed, Moves can be selectively analyzed to deeper plies with a right-click
- New game: Fixed bug when selecting 2nd best NNs in a Tavli match
- New game: Default chance filter is now OneMove (1)
General
- Added translations in some standardButtons
Engines
- Fixed crash when AI pondered cube actions in a backgammon game
GUI
- Added new menu item "Analyze From ID" to Game Menu
- Fixed result and message when player drops the cube
- Fixed XGID visual issues in analyze window
- Changed name of "Tapa" variant to "Start with 3 stacks"
- Changed names of Tavli AIs in start game dialog
General
- Fixed bug: Language change was not applied at next startup
- Fixed bug: Error in .tavli file when saving game with manual dice and start player is CPU
Engines
- Added Narde NNs (Narde-1, Narde-2)
- Fixed bug: wrong 3-ply evaluation when terminal moves exist
UI
- Added Narde analysis
- Added highlighted color to options
- Analysis window visual improvements
Engines
- Added match play
- Added Tavli variant
- Added Backgammon variant
- Added 3ply search
UI
- Export positions to XGID format
Other
- Updated Qt to version 6.8.0 beta 4
- Many bug fixes and performance improvements
Engines
- Neural Network implementation now uses the Eigen library and SSE2 intrinsics. Up to 3x faster Neural Network computations, up to 2x faster in actual play
- Palamedes may not run on old processors that do not support the SSE2 instruction set. Processors newer than 2006 should be fine
- Fixed bug in Narde's move generation: Incorrectly allowed primes in opponent's home board when the point right before the home board is occupied
UI
- New option enables the computer opponent to resign a double game when it detects that there is 98% or more probability of losing a gammon (Default: Enabled)
- Fixed bug: when in automatic playing mode and the user resigned a game while moves where played automatically, the game was not stopped
- Files with .tavli extension are now associated by default with the Palamedes program
Engines
- Added Hypergammon variant. Up to 6 starting checkers supported. Portes NNs are used for AI opponents
- Added Nackgammon variant. Portes NNs are used for AI opponents
- Added Takhteh variant. Portes NNs are used for AI opponents
- Added several optional rules for Portes variant: Egyptian Rule, Nackgammon start position, No pip wastage in bearoff, No hit and run in player home board
UI
- Program now displays filename and gametype of current game on the title bar
- New Statistics dialog. Statistics are updated by gametype and AI opponent after the end of a game
Engines
- Added Narde variant. AI opponent can be a Fevga neural network
- Fixed bug in Fevga's move generation method when in a special case of the Fevga Start rule
- Optimized Fevga's move generation method by 15%
- Added rules for subvariations of Fevga, Plakoto
- Added pin databases for the Plakoto variant
UI
- Simplified start game dialog and options dialog
- Added options for Plakoto, Fevga rules
- Added 4 pseudo-random dice generation methods with seed support
- Fixed crash when loading game files with errors
- Loading a game file now displays the last position of the game
Engines
- Added Plakoto-5, Fevga-6 engines. These engines are stronger than the previous ones
- Removed some weak engines
UI
- New option: change checker color
- New option: automatically check for new version at startup
- New option: faster play and automatically play forced moves
- New option: select program language (English, Greek, German supported)
- Pipcount can be viewed in the toolbar
- Added program manual in English
Other
- Program now installs using NSIS Nullsoft installer
- Fixed program icon
Engines
- Portes/Backgammon can now use a special 2-sided endgame database. This DB is loaded on startup if it exists
UI
- Added option that prunes the move list keeping the x best 1-ply moves for expansion to 2-ply. When set to 0 all moves are expanded
- User can now remove the remaining moves of a game starting from a selected position on the scoresheet