The program was conceived as a multi-engine chess program and allows many different chess engines to be integrated. The user interface and the chess program itself are strictly separated and communicate with one another via a standard interface. Many chess engines can be downloaded from the Internet that use the UCI protocol. UCI is a protocol that was devised by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen and stands for Universal Chess Interfacet.

 

The program fully supports engines that use the UCI protocol. The menu Engine – Create UCI Engine opens a dialog to integrate a UCI engine.

The installation is carried out via an intuitive dialog.

 

The program must first be told where the UCI engine has been stored on the computer. The button "Browse" opens a folder tree that can be used to select the folder which contains the engine.

 

After the path has been selected the fields "Name" and "Author" are automatically filled, as long as the engine contains this data. There is a button entitled "Parameters" which can be used to alter the engine’s playing style.

 

In Fritz there is a new parameter to determine the priority of a UCI engine. What does it mean if the priority is set to lower?

 

 

This has to do with the distribution of the processor time. The communication between the user interface and the chess engine is carried out by a separate program, the Engine Interface. The Engine Interface runs with low priority to give the chess engine the maximum amout of ressources. Some UCI engines have problems with the default setting because they use too many ressources and the Engine Interface cannot receive the evaluation results and similar data. The setting "Lower priority" solves display problems that arise when certain UCI engines are used.

 

Even when the lower priority is set a UCI engine receives all the processor speed it needs and brings its best performance. This setting does not adversely affect the performance of a UCI engine! This is easy to test by analysing the same position with both settings. There is no change in the engine’s speed, it only makes the usage smoother.

 

So why can the priority be lowered for the UCI engines and not for Fritz (and the other engines sold by Chessbase)? The native Chessbase engines are linked as DLL’s to the user interface, which means that unlike the UCI engines they are not external processes. No external protocol is necessary, and no priority must be set.

 

See also Engine Interface ....