This is not accurate. It is both supported to install programs for all users and for individual users, in the latter case the program files go in subdirectory of %LocalAppData% which is usually C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local and this will not require running the installer as Administrator. There is an obvious security design benefit in not requiring every installer to have write access to %ProgramFiles%.

Sometimes there is a choice in installers, if you want to install for all users or only the current user, and for other installers it might not make sense to offer a choice.

Btw if you hold down the shift key while right clicking on an MSI installer (or any program) you can find "Run as different user" after expanding the menu by clicking the "Show more options". Don't do this Installers downloaded from the internet that demand to run as Administrator not only offer you to gamble with deliberate security subversion but also to find out how borked an installer can really be.

The best are executables that do not need installion other than moving to a directory. My second favourite is a ZIP archive; after extracting, it is as before.

I forgot the Shift key method because it must have been 20 years since I last needed it.

Installtion into a user directory without further choice but with needed administrative rights is not nice. It means that the program lands in the administrator's user directory. Instead, it should be installed for the standard user with which one goes online.

Even so, installation to a user directory, although conforming to Windows guidelines, is a dirty method because installed programs will be in different locations making security mamagement unnecessarily difficult. As dirty as creating another main directory.

You are right with "There is an obvious security design benefit in not requiring every installer to have write access to %ProgramFiles%." and ruthless installers. It is a weakness of Windows that non-app software installers have too many rights (unless Windows server is configured well or a pathological user of ordinary Windows creates one user account per software and makes excessive use of access rights etc.).

GPU Stand

A few years ago, it was difficult to buy GPU stands. Nowadays, getting some is easy enough but each costs ca. €10 ~ 15. Some graphics cards come with a stand or dubios holder. Mine came with a stand with magnetic bottom. As a provisional stand, this was good enough. However, these stands tend to be loose on their foot. Besides, graphics cards can well exceed 1kg so one stand is hardly enough to protect the expensive item for several years. Early PCI cards weighed a few grams but current PCIe graphics cards are not designed for this port. Instead, they recklessly move all limits.

Before building the desktop, one can hardly predict the best solution as every card and case is different. I have chosen a case with holes in the upper cover plate of the PSU and my graphics cards permits stands between its fans. I imagined building a sophisticated stand but getting suitable pieces is hard.

After measurements, my solution is thick screws and nuts. Each stand for way less than €1 consists of a screw just fitting through a hole, knurled nuts and simple nuts for counter-fixing. If the screw does not move easily through a hole, spin it. The screw should be circa 1cm longer than the gap between plate and graphics card. Put knurled nuts above and below the plate.

Needless to say, the PSU is off and disconnected during work. You might also need to remove the graphics card temporarily. Here, one can face the problem of finding and operating the PCIe slot's handle. If your CPU cooler is huge, there is little space to look and touch the handle. Therefore, before your first installation of your graphics card, you better remember the exact location and apparence of the handle so that you will not accidentally break a part of the graphics card confusing it with the handle. I was not wise enough to do that but at least I could compare to, and test operating, the next long PCI slot's handle. My hand could not reach the decisive handle. You won't believe - I switched it with a long dough scraper because it is non-metallic, solid and thin! Another warning: you must not put screws into the PSU, which is easily forgotten when only seeing the plate with holes above it! Instead, the screws must go through the extension of the plate beyond the PSU.

Now, with three stands, the graphics card rests firmly.


Which GPU?

For a desktop, 4080 is prohibitively expensive relative to its speed. The same has to be said about 4060TI and 4060, although they are low end to mid tier. If you consider the previous generation, I suggest buying a notebook or mini pc instead because you will get similar speed in a much smaller form factor. This leaves 4070, 4070TI and 4090. The choice between 4070 and 4070TI is a matter of taste - how much expense and wattage do you prefer? 4090 is slightly more efficient as to price per speed or watt but is a totally different beast: more than twice as expensive as 4070 and more than twice the speed at more than twice the wattage and power expense. You buy a monster and need to tame and feed it. 4090 is good for bragging rights while 4070 is reasonable (but already an upper mid tier expense). If you want a 4090, my question is: why not go straight to 4 * 4090 or 8 * 4090 water cooled (not to mention Hopper)...?

For a notebook, 4050, 4060 and 4070 are similar to each other and similar to 3070TI. If you choose a limited expense and do not care for the most silent operation, I'd recommend choosing a 3070TI notebook on sale; circa €1300 incl. VAT is sometimes possible. If, however, you want speed, choose 4080 or 4090 (Laptop variants of the GPUs) and wait for further price drops. 4080 Laptop is about 3080 10GB Desktop and 4090 Laptop @ 175W is about 4070TI Desktop. You might prefer lower wattage or manually set power targets (Afterburner!) though. A notebook GPU at 80W is rather silent and at 110W (sometimes 130W depending on the model, always including dynamic boost) can still have reasonable noise. Recall that 75% - 85% power taget (or fan modes choosing such) only loses 5 - 20% speed with RTX 4000. A 4090 at much lower power target would still be faster than 4080 at the same wattage but it is an expensive road to silence, unless you are lucky and find your dream notebook at a sale.

If a total expense of €700 is too much for your taste or you are 5 kyu or weaker, forget everything I have said and choose whatever hardware you can get hold of. Even CPU computing, iPads with M-chip or Macbook Air M1 are options then. However, do not just buy anything because it is cheap - while M1 has less than 1/30 the speed of 4070 Desktop, older hardware might have 1/100th or less and have trouble even reading ladders.

If you already have a desktop and consider upgrading, my advice has been: don't but wait. O well, maybe unless you have something more than 6 years old. €650 will do wonders while instead €350 first of all feeds Nvidia. Do not consider AMD or Intel; as I have explained, saving a few bucks is not worth it when Nvidia libraries can multiply speed.

Lenovo Legion Slim 7i 16 (Gen 8), 13900H, 4070 Laptop, Test by Notebookcheck

https://www.notebookcheck.com/Lenovo-Le ... 457.0.html


The benchmarks allow an approximate comparison of 4070 Laptop, 4070 Desktop, 4080 Laptop, 3080 Ti Laptop and other GPUs. I expect KataGo TensorRT to produce larger relative differences. 4070 Desktop and 4080 Laptop appear to be similar, as well as 4070 Laptop and 3080 Ti Laptop. However, one must note that the results of especially 4070 Laptop in this particular 19.9mm thin notebook with insufficient cooling rely on loud and hot operation at 54.4dB, even with only 116W GPU power. One tier lower than desktop means load notebook operation. In some other, thicker notebooks with much better cooling, speeds might be one or two GPU tiers lower with -20% or -30% at roughly 39 ~ 43dB noise.










Misc Values

19.9mm = chassis thickness
54,4dB = noise 3D game / Witcher 3 Ultra / Load Max (Performance + GPU OC on + Overdrive on)
48,9dB = noise 3D game (Balanced)
98°C = GPU Memory Junction Temperature max
71°C = GPU Witcher 3 Ultra Performance + GPU OC on + Overdrive on
64°C = GPU Witcher 3 Ultra Balanced average
116W = GPU Power max

I have observed another curious thing about my 8 cores / 16 threads CPU: while usually KataGo uses ca. 16% of it, occasionally there is 100% CPU load on all threads for a fraction of a second. This seems to confirm the old wisdom that 6 cores would be enough. Of course, I cannot know whether more parallel CPU threads, despite usually modest load, would increase KataGo's speed a bit during non-peak CPU use. Anyway, the GPU is the bottleneck and one's first investment should go there.

GoWrite 2_3_2_4

GoWrite has its own idea of the contents of a CFG file so create and edit analysis_config_gowrite.cfg as follows:
- if a related error occurred, put # before logDir
- at least set: numAnalysisThreads = 3

Options | General Settings | Engine
x Use katago
Set the following sample paths:
Katago path = C:\katago\katago.exe
Analysis configuration = C:\katago\analysis_config_gowrite.cfg
Network = C:\katago\b18.bin.gz
Click Test, no errors should occur but Testing engine... possibly followed by a live log
Click Stop
Click OK

Load a game.
Click Ai button to let KataGo analyse all positions of the game.
Study the positions or edit the game while KataGo may do more analysis.

I think that plain playing against KataGo is impossible but you might choose one of its best moves when editing a position.

Larger numAnalysisThreads values are possible. After changing the value, Options | General Settings | Engine | Test is necessary again. I have not tested yet whether Analysis configuration can contain more parameters.

Lizzie 2_5_3

Extract ZIP, copy to C:\LizzieYZY

Copying to C:\Program Files\LizzieYZY fails because write access is needed. Optionally, restrict user access rights of C:\LizzieYZY

Comes with 32-bit JRE version 17, which is virtually executed in C:\Program Files (x86)

Desktop link to C:\LizzieYZY\Lizzieyzy-2.5.3-win64.exe

Initial setup: choose default or set values with error messages to 0.

Settings | Engines



Press N
Choose Engine

Optionally, in the menu bar, click on the currently active engine to change it.

Crapware

Nowadays, crapware is one of the unpleasant characteristics of Windows computing.

I tried several softwares from the MSI mainboard downloads but they are all crapware, except for Afterburner. HWiNFO64 does very much more than all the crapware together, whose major purpose is permanent telemetry.

My Asus graphics card has been flooded with crapware in the Windows services and autoruns, of which I only need one tiny bit: deactivating the lighting. I do not want to pull its cable but manage it in configuration software.

However, I take care of the Asus crapware as follows. After deactivating Asus Windows services and autoruns as follows, the graphics card works well, as it should due to the Nvidia graphics card driver.

Different graphics cards from possibly other manufacturers might need different care so understand the following as a sample guideline.


Initial Setting

For the graphics card, deactivate lighting in Armoury Crate.


Deactivated Asus Windows Services

Stop and deactivate each of the following Windows services, then newstart Windows. The defaults are Automatic unless stated.



Deactivated Asus Autoruns



Deactivate the Light Again

Occasionally (once every few weeks), the graphics card light might reappear. To deactivate it again, do the following. For both of these Asus Windows services, -> Automatic -> Start -> Newstart -> Stop -> Deactivate -> Newstart.


In autoruns deactivate:

LizGoban


I have tried LizGoban KataGo Eigen briefly with CPU load 43~44%, CPU fans >1300RPM, System fans >1500RPM so subjectively especially too loud CPU fans. Luckily, we can use KataGo on the GPU. For this purpose, one should modify config.json. LizGoban in Baduk Megapack does not enable a modified config file. Therefore, from LizGoban on github and a webpage's Assets section, download LizGoban-<version>_win_<date>.zip and extract it to C:\Program Files (x86)\LizGoban . The program starts as a 32b process but launches 64b child processes executed in C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Temp . It works for a standard Windows user and has also worked if installed to C:\Program Files\LizGoban . Use or suitably modify the following file between the BEGIN and END lines and save it as C:\Program Files (x86)\LizGoban\config.json

************************ BEGIN config.json ************************

************************ END config.json ************************

In the file, note that the paths use slashs because I got errors with backslashs but maybe the errors were unrelated and you might try backslashs nevertheless. Note that there are lots of quotation marks but no .exe in the paths in the file! Create a desktop link to LizGoban<version>.exe and start LizGoban. This may create initial problems such as parsing errors. You might need to close LizGoban or, if necessary, kill its process trees, restart it and click Try Again or a similar button on a remaining small dialog window, which you might have to move out of the center of your display so that it is not hidden by the "Starting LizGoban..." message. Repeat until you succeed. If never, you might actually have made a syntax error in your edited file.

The specified accelerators F1, F2, F3 are your shortcut keys, with which you can change the KataGo engine faster than via the Preset menu. The started LizGoban loads the F1 engine.

File | Match vs. AI starts a game against KataGo. To play White, then click on "start AI's turn". During the game, you can change the used engine easily.

LizGoban stores some files in C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\LizGoban .

Now, I have refined everything and put it on one webpage:

https://home.snafu.de/jasiek/AI_Computer.html

Today, I have started serious opening study with KataGo. This lets me be so astonished that I cannot close my mouth even minutes after interrupting study. Opening theory as I knew it almost vanishes. Yesterday, I expected to see the opening revolution but today it is even overwhelmingly revolutionary. AI play is very different: usually territory-orientated unless influence-orientated then necessarily due to global positional context; flexibel unless reinforcing or accidentally agreeing to known josekis. Usually, 5-3 and 5-4 do not exist and 3-3 is depreciated unless globally optimal.

Well, it will be good to get the view by a leading and thorough theoretic like you. Your brief doesn't surprise me: Uberdude popularized AI opening theory with his "Leela Zero Gospel". Corners then sides then center has become Corners ......................................... then side then center. The value of influence must be clear, often already working with existing influence at the opposite corner. Likewise a pincer is a good option (only) when backed up by influence, making it a "double purpose" move. I haven't read anything by O Meien (?) or Shimure (?) but I believe they've covered those points in detail. But your mind is known - by me at least - to work yet a little differently, so I'm very interested in what you find.

I would like to recommend you to report the results of your investigations in a new, separate thread.
This is because they have no relation to the hardware or software configuration of your new desktop computer.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O O . . . . , . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I have used this position as a first test of having 64GB RAM by occupying more than 32GB. I have not measured time exactly but let the GPU work for roughly 1h. The result is as follows, where the hardware is reported by HWiNFO64.



Note that move A has the higher percentage but move B has the larger score with Black to move. What does this mean for KataGo's own thinking?

I have not watched permanently but noticed a peak of ca. 15,000 visits/s shown in LizzieYZY. Typical values were closer to 4,000. Judging from other positions, speed strongly depends on the position and currently explored variations.

From my usage so far, I can say that I am happy with my decision to buy an RTX 4070 Desktop dGPU. While faster is always nicer in this respect, the card is fast enough to achieve what I want. A purchase of a slower dGPU (such as in a notebook) with roughly 50% speed would also have worked but I would have got the feeling of it being too slow for me. Quite a few people say that every rather modern dGPU, such as 1080TI, would be fast enough but I have to disagree. As a 5 dan and researcher, I really do need such a speed as the 4070 provides.

One must not always trust early values of moves shown in a program. It is sometimes necessary to wait some seconds or maybe minutes. More territorial moves are appreciated earlier than less territorial moves, which need more AI pondering.

NOTHING!!!

39.0 = 99.74424 % of 39.1
6.8 = 101.49253 % of 6.7

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

It is often helpful to go back one move and forward again during the run of the analysis.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Yes, going back and forward I have already been using to compare values.



It means 0.25576% or 1.49253% loss during just one move. This is much considering that a game has many moves. These percentages do not translate linearly to such we humans perceive but still I do not ignore every small number. For lesrning, I'd say both moves are about equal. If, however, other two moves have slightly larger value differences, my alarm bells ring.

BTW, if the upper right corner stone is Q16, both moves have the same percentage and empirical score in a quick check.

The search will spend more most of the time searching the 'best' move, how many playouts each move gets is a good indicator if it is considered the best move even if the difference is tiny.

When I analyze the same position with komi the difference between E17 and B15 is no much.




You could say that E17 is slightly favored over B15 by KataGo, the evaluation is very close but it keeps searching E17 more. Either move is clearly favored over C16. One goal of opening theory is to avoid playing moves like C16 when better moves can easily be identified; it is not that it is so much worse it is that we know it is worse

A common human thinking patterns seems to be to assume that words like "always" are implied when they are not, therefore the conclusion could be "[everyone] [always] assume KataGo [always] dislikes C16 in [every] similar positions [and all the time]". Jumping to conclusions like that is not warranted, more investigation undoubtedly could find positions were C16 is preferred. I think that especially applies for moves in quiet positions that are evaluated just slightly worse, but if we 'know' it is worse in a particular position that might then be all we really care about.

If it is your desire to find the "best" move in a given position, you will probably have to adjust the komi until the win-rate is in the 50% range.
KataGo is best if it thinks that the game is a close one (which your example position is no longer).

As far as I know, you can adjust the komi in the middle of the running analysis via the command line ("komi=x").

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Ah, I have been in need of the komi setting hint, thanks!

C16: I wondered the same and constructed some position in which it is the best move according to KataGo:)