Chess for Android 2.5

[AartBik]

The engine (any engine I've tested) seems to crash at some point, I guess because the binaries I've found are compiled for 2.2 devices.

Please note that the native binaries are compiled for a particular processor family (ARMv5TE), not a particular Android api level (such as Android 2.2 or 2.3). What happens when you run the binaries within a 2.2 emulator (instead of a real device) and, conversely, on a real 2.3 device (instead of an emulator, assuming you have access to a device)?

[senorcarbone]

Please note that the native binaries are compiled for a particular processor family (ARMv5TE), not a particular Android api level (such as Android 2.2 or 2.3). What happens when you run the binaries within a 2.2 emulator (instead of a real device) and, conversely, on a real 2.3 device (instead of an emulator, assuming you have access to a device)?

Thanks for the quick response ! I'm too desperate with the native engines. The actual devices I've tested most of the
compiled engines were some low spec 2.1 and 2.2 devices (ARM1136EJ-S) and Galaxy S 2.2 (ARM Cortex A8) and there was no problem at all.
I haven't got any 2.3 device to test it but all 2.3 emulators seem to have issues and keep crashing after analyzing 1 or 2 moves, that's why I
assumed that it's a firmware thing but I may be wrong.
I want to publish my free app soon but this issue make me really desperate cause the only working uci engines I've found are those binaries
you and several else provided. Is there any way to keep up with compatibility issues? Do you think engine preferences can help on that or do I need
a whole different approach to make something compatible? Any ideas or suggestions for a workaround?

[AartBik]

I want to publish my free app soon but this issue make me really desperate cause the only working uci engines I've found are those binaries
you and several else provided. Is there any way to keep up with compatibility issues? Do you think engine preferences can help on that or do I need
a whole different approach to make something compatible? Any ideas or suggestions for a workaround?

To be sure, I just did conducted an engine-engine match between the two BikJumps on an Android 2.3.1 (api level 9) emulator, and this ran successfully in Chess for Android. I recommend inspecting the debug output while running on the emulator (if the system reports low memory, for instance, you may need to reduce the hash table size of the UCI engines). You can also see if the UCI binary runs successfully when started directly from a shell instead of through your application. Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress.

[senorcarbone]

To be sure, I just did conducted an engine-engine match between the two BikJumps on an Android 2.3.1 (api level 9) emulator, and this ran successfully in Chess for Android. I recommend inspecting the debug output while running on the emulator (if the system reports low memory, for instance, you may need to reduce the hash table size of the UCI engines). You can also see if the UCI binary runs successfully when started directly from a shell instead of through your application. Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress.

It's indeed a low memory problem on emulators as far as I can understand from my logs. Through the shell I just get a message that the engine closed unexpectedly, nothing more. I'll try reducing the hash table size as you recommended. To be honest I haven't tried your engine yet, just tested Robbolito and Stockfish builds you mentioned on the engine matches page, Stockfish 2.0 crashes immediately after starting up on 2.3 emulators by the way. I'll give a try of your Bikjump (2.1) engine build (ARMv5TE) and report back! If it works ok and you are agreed with it I could also put it as the default engine and of course give you the required credits . Just out of curiosity, do you include several builds of your engine to choose from depending on the architecture? What happens if for example it's a tablet android device with a non-typical qualcomm ARM cpu?

[AartBik]

I'll give a try of your Bikjump (2.1) engine build (ARMv5TE) and report back! If it works ok and you are agreed with it I could also put it as the default engine and of course give you the required credits . Just out of curiosity, do you include several builds of your engine to choose from depending on the architecture? What happens if for example it's a tablet android device with a non-typical qualcomm ARM cpu?

Glad the issue is resolved! Yes, feel free to use BikJump, under the terms of the license of course (no commercial use, proper credit, etc.). The Chess for Android APK does not ship with any engines (other than the built-in Java engine). The downloadable ARMv5TE binaries are supposed to work on any ARM-based Android device, but users can of course download more specialized binaries for particular platforms.