Some ramblings JellyFish 3.0 beta
Geoff Oliver
Here's some observsations on JF Player 3.0 beta after my first
look...There's quite a few things mentioned here - some trivial - and I'm
sure I'll be told if I'm mistaken on anything :-).... Also, as some of
these points are subjective, I thought some sort of discussion was in
order.
This is mostly about the interface and whilst certainly not of paramount
importance to me I think it deserves comment as a) JF is still
extortionately priced compared to other games (Analyzer, anyway), and b) a
little tweeking would go a long way re selling outside the specialist
marketplace where the 'feel' of the game is perhaps more important than the
quality of play. Hey ! With bigger sales it'll be cheaper for all of us !
JF 3.0 looks much like 2.01 but there are a few things that niggle
me........
- I cant find a way to change the colour of the printout. Shouldn't the
print look like the screen ? (Under JF 2.01 I did this with edit of
analyz20.ini file )
- When running in Demo mode JF played itself continuously. Interesting.
But.. .....game after game ??? It appears to be absolutely unstoppable !!!
None of the usual keys or key combinations paused or stopped it. Closing
from the taskbar caused invaid page faults and once my system locked
requiring a reboot.
- Still no on-line help file. I'd recommend one - at least with the
registered version.
- The is no 'Save settings on Exit' option.
- I periodically notice that JF resets itself to play in Level 5 despite
tha fact that I've repeatedly reset to Level 7 in both game and match play
modes. Is this a bug anyone else has noticed ?
- Re View menu : Whilst the display of Number, Pipcount, Seed (selected
from the View menu) IS automatically saved on exit it is impossible to save
the turning off of the Status Bar or the Toolbar.
- The choice of checker Movement (from the Settings menu in 2.01) has been
removed. This is a bit of a bummer for me as I like using left-click for
the left die and right-click for the right die. Now I have to right-click
on the dice to swap them over before moving a checker. That's a lot more
clicks per game :-(
- When asking JF to Take-back it not only takes back its move but it takes
back its roll as well ! This really pisses me off sometimes ! Having to
switch temorarily to manual dice throw is a real pain.
- Re log Files : I havn't found a way to apend a log file. (This problem
was noted in a BIBAfax published last year.) It would appear that JF 3.0 is
like 2.01 in that if you close the program whilst logging a match there is
no way to resume logging if you wanted to finish the match later. (You can
retain the match score if you save to a .pos file but that's not what I
want.) Does anyone know a way round this ?
- When recording a log file it is possible to insert positions. However,
there's still no option to insert Comments. I'd like to see the option of
being able to insert a) JF evaluation either continuously or manually), and
b) user text.
- Having said that I do really like the new feature of being able to play
through matches now.
- Printing a match log file is not straightforward. One cannot open the
file to review it and then print it. ie The option on the file menu is
greyed-out. I have to pretend to start a new game or match and only after
selecting these menu options can I print a log file. This dosen't seem
right. Am I missing something here ?
- Full file management a la Win95 from within the program is now possible
from the File/Open menu. Essential if you've several hundred positions as I
have !
- Long file names are allowed ! Hooray !
- Old position files '*.pos created by JF 2.01 can be opened by version
3.0. However, the reverse does not appear to be true. Whilst this pissed me
off when I was doing my comparison of the two versions who else would want
to do this anyway ??
- The new 'Automization' option is most welcome. It allows automatic
rolling of the dice and play of forced moves and moreover this can be made
dependent on cube availability. A big timesaver ! Though confusingly these
settings had to be made twice, once during game play and once during match
play. I havn't worked out exactly how greedy the 'Greedy Bearoff' automize
option is yet. I guess the Manual may provide an insight into that.
- Another menu item I'm not clear on yet is the 'Use Caution' option from
the Settings menu. What is it ? Can anyone shed some light on that one too
?
- A new 'Seed' option is also available. One can now set the Seed and the
counter at any time during play. This should serve to reassure the sceptics
about the random number generator though I guess for practical purposes
it's only of much use when conducting a set of rollouts - which one can't
do with this beta of Player 3.0 :-(
- Another new option is available when selecting the top Level 7 - an
aditional box is available which allows setting of a 'Time Factor' , ie a
number from 1 to 1000. One to a thousand what, I ask. I've got a P150 and
amending the default of 10 to 1000 I havn't noticed any difference yet. Has
anyone else ? Or perhaps this feature only kicks in in certain situations
(?)
Enough on the interface.. But does it play better ? I havn't played enough
yet to really notice a difference so to get a handle on it I looked at 10
backgame
positions from Robertie's Advanced BG as we're told there's much
improvement in this area.
Position Book 2.01 3.0
163 Double/Take Double/Drop Per book
167 11-8, 13-8 11-6, 13-10 11-6, 8-5
168 7-4, 5-3 8-5, 8-6 7-4, 8-6
183 13-3*, 7-2*, 6-1* 8-3(2)*, 7-2(2)* Per book
184 Bar-23, 24-23 Per book Bar-23, 6-5
185 Bar-23, 23-22 Bar-23, 10-9 Bar-23, 10-9
188 6-2, 6-3 24-17 24-17
189 24-15 21-12* 21-12*
192 8-4*, 6-5 8-4*, 4-3 8-4*, 4-3
196 Bar-22, 5-3 Per book Per book
Differences on all sides ! I havn't done enough work yet to decide if any
of the above is significant. The main thing I've learnt from this is that
there are typo's in Robertie positons 174 and 190 which I'd never noticed
before ! Count the white checkers in both cases if you don't believe me !
So I left them out of the
above list. It's difficult to gleam a lot from this small sample as Player
3.0 dosn't allow 2-ply evaluations which would allow comparison of gammon
frequency in the above positions. I'm sure the Reviewers of the final
product be able to shed more light on improvements on play. In the meantime
I'm going to continue to steer for complicated positions and backgames
where I think I have (or had ?) the edge over JF. From what I've seen so
far I'm definitely going to fork out my 50 quid upgrade regardless of any
of the above quibbles.
Geoff Oliver
Ealing, London, UK
Fredrik Dahl
Hi,
Geoff Oliver wrote:
> ...
> - When running in Demo mode JF played itself continuously. Interesting.
> But.. .....game after game ??? It appears to be absolutely unstoppable !!!
> None of the usual keys or key combinations paused or stopped it. Closing
> from the taskbar caused invaid page faults and once my system locked
> requiring a reboot.
Hit space bar.
> - Another new option is available when selecting the top Level 7 - an
> aditional box is available which allows setting of a 'Time Factor' , ie a
> number from 1 to 1000. One to a thousand what, I ask. I've got a P150 and
> amending the default of 10 to 1000 I havn't noticed any difference yet. Has
> anyone else ? Or perhaps this feature only kicks in in certain situations
> (?)
Because PCs have different speeds, it's not measured in absolute time,
but it's a limit to how long it is allowed to look for the best play.
(It screens candidates using level 5 and 6, and time factor affects this.)
...
> Geoff Oliver
> Ealing, London, UK
We'll make a survival guide in the form of a help.txt file,
and make it available soon!
--
- Fredrik Dahl