New Mephisto Phoenix chess computer

[ChessChampion2150]

What are the different retro programs on it?

[mclane]

Mephisto Amsterdam, Dallas, Roma, Almeria, Portorose, Lyon, Vancouver, London
Saitek Risk 2500, Mephisto Montreux, Tasc King V2.20, 2.23 & 2.50
Mephisto Rebell 5.0, MM IV, MM V, MMV (5.1), Polgar, Tasc R30 Gideon
Mephisto Glasgow

And modern engines are
Shredder 13.5 NNUE, Komodo 14.1, Hiarcs 14.2, Stockfish 15 NNUE

[ChessChampion2150]

Mephisto Amsterdam, Dallas, Roma, Almeria, Portorose, Lyon, Vancouver, London
Saitek Risk 2500, Mephisto Montreux, Tasc King V2.20, 2.23 & 2.50
Mephisto Rebell 5.0, MM IV, MM V, MMV (5.1), Polgar, Tasc R30 Gideon
Mephisto Glasgow

And modern engines are
Shredder 13.5 NNUE, Komodo 14.1, Hiarcs 14.2, Stockfish 15 NNUE

Very helpful, thank you!

[Scally]

Not forgetting the Nigel Short & Mephisto Milano Emulations plus other Modern Engines in beta testing …

Al

[Clark Barr]

Just got the e-mail from Millennium on Friday that the first update for the Phoenix will be released soon. Assuming it will be version "F". They also included a link to a survey about future updates.

I'm curious as to what will be in the "F" update!

[PoisonedPawn]

There is now an Engine Pack available on computerchess.com
Included are
Komodo Dragon 3
Leela 0.29
Ginkgo 1 (aka Fritz 18)

It’s about $100 US (83 euros), and you need version 4.01A to install it or even buy it. For the moment the purchase is only in German, but it’s pretty simple. It automatically installs the next time you update the system. I received it within a minute or two of paying for it.
As far as I can, there are no profiles for the extra engines, which is a bummer since Dragon 3 has a boatload of settings to play with. The other two have very limited settings.
To use the new engines. You just go to Chess Settings, Engines - they don’t appear on Comfort Menu.

[Steve Maughan]

Am I right in thinking "The King" engine as a native engine still isn't included?

— Steve

[Clark Barr]

I've played 30 minute test games with the new engines.

My first impressions:

Leela has extremely limited options and it's the weakest of the 3
Gingko (Fritz 18) is in the middle of the 3 and it is also limited.
But Komodo Dragon is a nutcracker the strongest of the 3 especially because it has access to endgame tables and a neural network. It played the Alekhine defense and utterly crushed me in a 30 minute game.

[Scally]

Hi all,

Am I right in thinking "The King" engine as a native engine still isn't included?

— Steve

Correct, it’s not included as yet …

My first impressions:

Leela has extremely limited options and it's the weakest of the 3
Gingko (Fritz 18) is in the middle of the 3 and it is also limited.
But Komodo Dragon is a nutcracker the strongest of the 3 especially because it has access to endgame tables and a neural network. It played the Alekhine defense and utterly crushed me in a 30 minute game.

The are a lot of Lc0 UCI parameters it also supports endgame tablebases & NNUE is built in. Most of the UCI parameters available for Lc0 have not been activated. You can add them yourself by editing file ‘pcs_dat_engsandr’ found on the 3rd partition of the micro sd card (take a backup first). The 1st partition houses the boot files, the 2nd partition is protected and is mostly un-editable, however the 3rd partition contains all the engines, books etc and can be modified. I have upgraded my Stockfish to v16, added extra books & activated more of the Lc0 UCI options, like selecting the eigen backend instead of blas for example …


Cheers,

Al.

[Clark Barr]

Al thanks for the info. However my diabetic eyes and arthritic hands no longer are dexterous enough to perform delicate surgery on devices.

I did send a suggestion to the Phoenix team about unlocking Leela and also seeing if they could add Maia as another engine.

Here is the sample game where Phoenix Dragon 3 played the Alekhine against Mac Deep Hiarcs 15.2 I think you'll find it an interesting unbalanced game.

Played with a 30 minute time control on both sides

White Mac Deep HIARCS 15.2 Black Phoenix Dragon 3

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 dxe5 6.fxe5 Nc6 7.Be3 Bf5 8.Nc3 e6 9.Be2 Be7 10.Nf3 O-O 11.O-O f6 12.exf6 Bxf6 13.Qd2 Qe7 14.Rad1 Rad8 15.Kh1 h6 16.h3 Bg6 17.Qc1 Kh8 18.b3 Rd7 19.Bg1 Bh7 20.Rfe1 Qd8 21.Qe3 Nb4 22.Rf1 Nc2 23.Qc1 Qe7 24.a3 Rfd8 25.c5 Nd5 26.Nxd5 Rxd5 27.Bc4 R5d7 28.d5 e5 29.Rf2 Nd4 30.Nxd4 Bg5 31.Qb2 exd4 32.Re2 Qxc5 33.Bxd4 Qf8 34.Rf2 Qe7 35.d6 cxd6 36.Rf7 Qxf7 37.Bxf7 Rxf7 38.Bxa7 Be4 39.Qe2 d5 40.Bc5 Rc7 41.Qb5 Rc6 42.Rf1 d4 43.Bb6 Rc2 44.Rg1 Rc3 45.Re1 Bc6 46.Qb4 Bd2 47.Qe7 Rg8 48.Bxd4 Bxe1 49.Qxe1 Rxh3+ 50.Kg1 Rd3 51.Qh4 Kh7 52.Qf4 Be8 53.b4 Bg6 54.Qe5 Rxa3 55.Qc7 Rd3 56.Bc3 Rd1+ 57.Kh2 b5 58.Qe5 Rc1 59.Qd4 Rc2 60.Kh1 Re2 61.Qd7 Re3 62.Bd4 Rg3 63.Kh2 Rg5 64.g3 Bf5 65.Qxb5 Rc8 66.Bc5 Rd8 67.Qe2 Bg6 68.g4 Re8 69.Qd1 Re4 70.Kg3 h5 71.Kf3 Rgxg4 72.Qc1 Rc4 73.Qa1 Rgf4+ 74.Ke3 h4 75.Bb6 h3 76.Qh1 Rh4 77.Ba7 h2 78.Bb8 Rh3+ 79.Ke2 Rc2+ 80.Kd1 Rh4 81.Be5 Rxb4 82.Qxh2+ Rxh2 83.Bxh2 Rb1+ 84.Ke2 Rb2+ 85.Kf3 Rxh2 86.Ke3 Rh4 87.Kd2 Rh3 88.Kc1 Rd3 89.Kb1 Rd2+ 90.Kc1 Rc2+ 91.Kd1 Bd3 92.Ke1 g5 93.Kd1 g4 94.Ke1 g3 95.Kd1 g2 96.Ke1 g1=R# 0-1

[PoisonedPawn]

Easy to miss this, but the new firmware 4.01A enables several new retro emulations:
Novag Super Expert B & C, and Diablo 68000
Fidelity Avant Garde V2
Saitek Corona C/D+

The computerchess.com site explains how to enable these, in a new manual download for firmware 4.01A
You do need to provide your own ROM files, though. It took me a while to find them, but all of them are available in this file:
https://mega.nz/file/MwNWFZDC#aGvxPgNFq ... zqigA3cgcU

If you download and unzip this file, you'll find the ROMS in the following folders:
mamechess_2021\messui\roms\sexpertb.zip
..\sexpertc1.zip
..\diablo68.zip
..\corona.zip
..\coronaa.zip
..\coronax.zip
..\egr2.zip
..\feagv2.zip

There's much more to this download than the ROMS though. There are nice PC emulations of TONS of retro chess computers.
-note that I need to do a hard reset after launching each PC simulation for them to run right (shortcut is <Shift> <F3>)
-unless you speak Spanish, run the mamechess_21ds_eng.exe file in the main folder, or the mameui64.exe file in messui folder.
-for most machines, I prefer to set Options/Video/2D artwork by Luis

[PoisonedPawn]

I forgot to include the CXG Sphinx 4.0 emulation, where roms are in the Sphinx40.zip folder . . .

[Clark Barr]

Thanks!

Couldn't find the Sphinx or Corona ROMS on the download linked at computer chess.com

Appreciate your help!

Also, I got a reply from the Phoenix team that they didn't include LC0 options due to the complexity. They will consider Maia in a future download.

[Clark Barr]

Version 4.01B has been released that updates Stockfish 15 to Stockfish 16.

There is also an updated manual on Millennium's webpage.

[mclane]

One major feature of the emulations is, how good Mephi III S Glasgow plays when beeing speeded up.