New fixes in Pico V4 for brave testers

51 views
Skip to first unread message

Johan Sjöblom

unread,
Nov 12, 2025, 1:04:37 PMNov 12
to PicoChess
Hi all.

First of all in 4.1.7 I have tried to fix a lot of analysis issues where we get the infos like bestmove, score, depth. It has also been optimized heavily to save CPU.

Today I managed to solve an old problem. What if a mame engine crashes when it is trying to make a move? If you update now you will get a solution that does this when a mame engine crashes:

- If the situation on the board position is a win like mate, stalemate, or if its a draw according to some rule then the game end is announced...
- If the board position is still a valid game, then for a mame engine I check if the engine responds any more with a 2-second timeout. If the engine still responds and is alive and well I also close the game as a situation where the engine has surrendered the game.

- If the engine did not respond within 2 seconds we assume the engine is dead.
- If you are waiting for a move from the engine but it doesnt seem to be alive any more you can click the play-pause ||> button aka "force a move". It will check if the engine is dead with the same 2-second timeout... If the engine is alive it should perform a forced move.

If the mame engine is dead picochess will attempt to make a takeback of the user move. You should hear the takeback message, and you should also perform the takeback move if you are on an eboard (web takebacks are automatic). 
Then Picochess proceeds to reload the same engine again and you should be able to make the same move, or another and hope that it does not crash again.

I tested it, and after a Mephisto mame engine crashed I was able to continue playing that same position by repeating the same "take-back" move.

-- Johan
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages