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Jon Dart - the man who created one of the most recognizable and powerful chess engine.
- Oldie Goldie
Although Arasan is not as old as Cthulhu (one of the heroes...
- Oldie Goldie
Although Arasan is not as old as Cthulhu (one of the heroes of the books of the above-mentioned writer), it takes his rightful and deserved place in the history of chess engines. Arasan means "king" in Tamil, a language spoken in South India and Sri Lanka.
Arasan is a chess program for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. The latest version is Arasan 24.2.2, released in April, 2024. Arasan has both a native user interface (for Windows only) and a console-based chess engine for use with Winboard or xboard. Arasan also works with Arena, another free chess interface, and with UCI-compatible programs like ...
- Overview
- Copyright, license
- Program variants
- Command-line switches
- Option file (arasan.rc)
- UCI Options
- CECP options
- Neural Network
- Tablebases
- Programming and build information
Arasan is a chess engine, that is, a console-based program that plays the game of chess.
By itself, it has no graphical interface, but can be used together with interface programs such as Winboard and xboard. There is a separate Windows-only GUI for Arasan distributed with the Windows releases: it is not hosted on Github.
For communicating with a chess interface, Arasan supports either the standard CECP protocol (version 2) or the UCI protocol. CECP is the native protocol used by Winboard and xboard. UCI-compatible chess interfaces include ChessBase and Fritz. Arena, a free interface, supports both protocols.
Arasan is multi-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Unix) and supports multi-threading for higher performance.
Copyright 1994-2024 by Jon Dart. All Rights Reserved.
Arasan is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file.
Several different binaries for Arasan can be built. The default executable (arasanx-32 for 32-bit operating systems, or arasanx-64 for 64-bit ones) is designed to be runnable on most systems. Default x86 or x86_64 builds assume SSE2 instructions are available (these were introduced in 2000 with the Pentium IV).
Other program variants include:
1.arasanx-64-old - assumes no SIMD instructions, not even SSE2. Will run on very old x86 hardware.
2.arasanx-64-modern - requires a x86 processor with POPCNT, SSSE3 and SSE4.1 instructions (Intel Nehalem or later, i.e. 2008 era or more recent).
3.arasanx-64-avx2 - requires a more modern x86 processor with AVX2 instructions, as well as those required by the "modern" build. Recommended for AMD Excavator through Zen2 processors.
4.arasanx-64-avx2-bmi2 - requires a more modern x86 processor with AVX2 and BMI2 instructions, as well as those required by the "modern" build. Recommended for Intel Haswell or later processors and AMD processors on the Zen3 architecture (Nov. 2020) or later.
Arasanx recognizes the following command-line options:
•-H: specifies the hash table size in bytes ('K', 'M', or 'G' can be used to indicate kilobytes, megabyates or gigabytes).
•-c: specifies the number of threads to use (default is 1).
•-f: specifies a position file (FEN) to load on startup
•-t: shows some debugging output in the UI window or log file. To enable debug output, you also need to use the "-debugMode true" switch if using xboard/Winboard, or the "debug=true" option if using Arasan as a UCI engine. You normally shouldn't need to turn this on.
•-ics: outputs additional info when playing on a chess server.
Many aspects of Arasan's behavior can be modified by changing the arasan.rc file that is installed in the program directory. See comments in this file for details. If you do change it, I recommend retaining a backup copy so you can restore the default settings if you make a mistake or later decide you don't like your changes. You don't have to use ...
When used as a UCI engine, Arasan supports the following options:
•Hash - hash size in kilobytes
•Threads - number of threads to use
•Ponder - true to enable pondering (thinking on opponent's time)
•Contempt - followed by a number from -200 to 200. This is the inverse of the value of a draw in centipawns (1/100 pawn value). Negative values mean the opponent is higher rated, so a draw is desirable. Positive values mean the opponent is lower rated, so a draw should be avoided.
•Use tablebases - true to use tablebases, false to disable
Besides the standard option-setting commands such as "memory," the following additional option settings are available in CECP mode:
•Can resign - sets whether or not the engine can resign a game. Note: under UCI, the interface program is always in charge of resignation.
•Resign threshold - sets how bad the score must be before resignation. Only effective if "Can resign" is set true. Value is in centipawns (1/100 pawn) and is negative. So for example -500 means resign when down 5 pawns in score value.
•OwnBook - true to enable Arasan's native opening book, false to disable.
•BookPath - path to the Arasan book. Default is book.bin in the same directory as the Arasan engine executable.
•Favor frequent book moves - value from 0 to 100, default 50. Higher values favor selecting more frequent moves in the Arasan book.
Arasan now supports chess evaluation utilizing a neural network. The neural network file is external to the program and is loaded at runtime. The file name for the network can be specified using UCI or CECP options, or by setting the search.nnueFile option in the arasan.rc file. There is a default network filename set there. In the options, if no d...
Arasan supports Syzygy format compressed endgame tablebases. You can configure Arasan to use tablebases by editing the arasan.rc file, or by using a GUI that supports UCI or CECP option commands. Note that many chess GUIs will override the arasan.rc settings, and set their own defaults. So if using a GUI you should if possible set the tablebase path and related options in the GUI, not in the file.
The Arasan distribution does not come with any tablebase files. Syzygy tablebases can be downloaded from https://syzygy-tables.info/.
See BUILD.md for compilation instructions. See the Programmer's Guide for additional technical information.
Arasan, an open source engine written by Jon Dart in C++ . Arasan's development started in the early 90s, the first version, released in 1994 was a 16-bit program running under Windows 3.1 using an 8x8 Board , incremental updated attack tables and its own GUI , evolving to a portable 32-bit and later 64-bit program, utilizing bitboards to ...
Nov 9, 2023 · Arasan is a chess engine, that is, a console-based program that plays the game of chess. By itself, it has no graphical interface, but can be used together with interface programs such as XBoard. Arasan is published under an open source license.
Arasan Downloads. Click on one of the links below to download the latest version of Arasan. Note: if you have difficulty downloading a file, try right-click and then select "Save Link As ..". Note also: Windows XP is still supported, but you should have at least Service Pack 3 installed.
