Is chessmaster 9000 junk? | Forums

[rapalla7]

I have been having problems with my chessmaster from day one. Either it crashes, or when I exit a program it starts up programs that are completely unrelated. It would not go from true 3D to 2D view without crashing and now that customer support fixed that.. I now do not have the option of going back to true 3D. I contacted customer support about this new problem and the support person did not even read the question that I wrote to the end. He told me that Maybe my vidio card would not support the 8.1 direct X. If he would have read it to the end he would see that I had true 3D from the beginning and could not get to 2D, and now I just want to get back.
Without getting too windy here I would like to say that companies should take a little more time with products before they are released into the public so we can all avoid dissatisfactoin. I am tired of endless patches for glitches that are not well thought out, and it really tee's me off to know they are triming their R&D budgets by making me....the end user, the research tool.
The only reason I am posting here is because I could not figgure out where else to put it.

Mike

[rapalla7]

I have been having problems with my chessmaster from day one. Either it crashes, or when I exit a program it starts up programs that are completely unrelated. It would not go from true 3D to 2D view without crashing and now that customer support fixed that.. I now do not have the option of going back to true 3D. I contacted customer support about this new problem and the support person did not even read the question that I wrote to the end. He told me that Maybe my vidio card would not support the 8.1 direct X. If he would have read it to the end he would see that I had true 3D from the beginning and could not get to 2D, and now I just want to get back.
Without getting too windy here I would like to say that companies should take a little more time with products before they are released into the public so we can all avoid dissatisfactoin. I am tired of endless patches for glitches that are not well thought out, and it really tee's me off to know they are triming their R&D budgets by making me....the end user, the research tool.
The only reason I am posting here is because I could not figgure out where else to put it.

Mike

[trpenner]

I don't agree with you about Chessmaster. I agree that it has bugs but every software package that does anything is going to have some bugs. You have to recognize at least with commerical software that is sold on the shelf, they WANT it to sell. It won't if it doesn't get a good reputation. It's the best program for learning Chess in my opinion. Have you tried downloading the latest patch for Chessmaster? I have had it crash also if I recall on a badly messed up computer. It may be necessary to reformat your hard drive, re-install windows and make absolutely certain you download all the updates at windowsupdate.microsoft.com. If you are having problems with other software as you mentioned, I would at least consider that approach. Before you get mad at me for saying this, I am a PC Tech. So I know how a misconfigured Windows can make a BIG difference. It's absolutely NOT always the vendors fault. There are literally billions upon billions of variables to contend with.

[Fischer-The-2nd]

I think that as long as there is any selling value left in a game the company will keep supporting it. But as soon as the sales stops, so does the support for the game. There aren't many games that still gets patches after 2+ years, even though they're still bugged. Perhaps companies should hold onto the games until they're bug free. But then again, there are alot of people who's waiting for a release as early as possible.
As trpenner says, there can be many reasons for your problem, it's not only limited to chessmasters fault.

__________________________________________________ ____________________________________
Fischer-The-2nd

What we think, we become - Buddha.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dwell in the future, concetrate the mind on the present moment - Buddha.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill - Buddha.

[rapalla7]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by trpenner:
I don't agree with you about Chessmaster. I agree that it has bugs but every software package that does anything is going to have some bugs. You have to recognize at least with commerical software that is sold on the shelf, they WANT it to sell. It won't if it doesn't get a good reputation. It's the best program for learning Chess in my opinion. Have you tried downloading the latest patch for Chessmaster? I have had it crash also if I recall on a badly messed up computer. It may be necessary to reformat your hard drive, re-install windows and make absolutely certain you download all the updates at windowsupdate.microsoft.com. If you are having problems with other software as you mentioned, I would at least consider that approach. Before you get mad at me for saying this, I am a PC Tech. So I know how a misconfigured Windows can make a BIG difference. It's absolutely NOT always the vendors fault. There are literally billions upon billions of variables to contend with.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[rapalla7]

Thank you for your response. About 4 weeks ago I did reformat,Actually I wiped the drive and repartioned and loaded xp pro from the ground up. I understand how things can get messed up. It was after this that I origionaly loaded the chessmaster and had full function of the true 3D features; It was not until I wanted to be able to anylize games in 2D that I started to have problems. The support crew showed me how to change my lay. file to configure the 2D, this I did and it did work. When I went to change back to the true 3D it was no longer available. I did not change any of my computer settings or registry files during the initial installation of the chessmaster and the problem is mind boggling. I then loaded the game onto my work computer which runs windows 2000 (which is unsupported) and I could get the 3D function, which runs great. I then coppied the lay file from the work computer to see if I could ferrit out the problem at home. No Luck. I will not dispute the teaching and chess engine capabilities this program has no equal. The interface is wonderfull for kids.

Mike
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rapalla7:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by trpenner:
I don't agree with you about Chessmaster. I agree that it has bugs but every software package that does anything is going to have some bugs. You have to recognize at least with commerical software that is sold on the shelf, they WANT it to sell. It won't if it doesn't get a good reputation. It's the best program for learning Chess in my opinion. Have you tried downloading the latest patch for Chessmaster? I have had it crash also if I recall on a badly messed up computer. It may be necessary to reformat your hard drive, re-install windows and make absolutely certain you download all the updates at windowsupdate.microsoft.com. If you are having problems with other software as you mentioned, I would at least consider that approach. Before you get mad at me for saying this, I am a PC Tech. So I know how a misconfigured Windows can make a BIG difference. It's absolutely NOT always the vendors fault. There are literally billions upon billions of variables to contend with.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[scottshepard]

Chessmaster 9000 is not realistic. In this respect I think it's junk. I have played the lower levels down to Stanley the monkey in the kid's room, whose moves are SUPPOSED to be totally random. This is not true, while it throws away pieces, as do most of the lower levels (anything below 1300)[which, by the way is a sad way to approximate a real beginning player], defensively,in avoidance of checkmate Stanley or any of the other low level players is amazing. Checkmate in under twenty moves is unheard of. This RANDOM player and the others seem to have learned how not to get in checkmate first and can spot strategy to mate very well. I am a teacher and have students that, as part of a well rounded education, I teach chess to. I've introduced our two little private schools to chess and bought about fifteen chess sets for the kids to play with. Now I'm even have the kids make our own chess sets out of wood. Not a child goes through my class without learning to play chess. The shame is that I haven't recommended Chessmaster 9000 to any of them. It doesn't build much confidence in a beginner to get beaten by a monkey or to be unable to play his or her just learned four move checkmate or for that matter, even to be unable to play new discoveries or forks, just like they could learn on the Chessmaster teaching mode, because the monkey can catch it. Mr. Scott Futurelink School, Arcadia, Ca.

[Fischer-The-2nd]

I think you are half right and half wrong.
It is right that the low personalities have some form of hidden power to spot a checkmate from a distance. The idea of random moves might be a little inaccurate there. Though try asking kasparov, or for that matter anyone who plays against computers how difficult it is to actually mate a computer, at a higher level of course. It is, as of today, almost impossible without going into an endgame where you can get away with superior material. So in Stanleys way, he's builded by the same princip as chessmaster itself and he is a computer, not a monkey, not a human, he is nothing at all. Therefore you can't expect a computer to make human mistakes. It is programmed to avoid losing the game, e.i avoiding checkmate. At higher levels it might be easier to immitate human mmistakes because the mistakes aren't very many or very big/obvious. But at the lower levels it's hard to make a computer trying to play it's best though still losing, plus making lots of mistakes , that should all look like human mistakes. I don't think you can expect that from Chessmaster 9000, Fritz, Junior or even Deep Blue for that matter. If what you want for education is something that can play as humans at low levels, you don't find it in any chessgame. A computer and will play as a computer. Always.
I think the closest you can get to human intelligence is deep blue 1997 second game, but letting young kids compete against such a level of chess is stupid.
I think chessmaster is excellent for training of kids. The tutorials are the best you can get. Lastly, wouldn't they also be more proud if they could show off their new fork/checkmate/discoveries against real persons (friends) instead of a computer. At least I feel that.

If you want soemthing else you could have a look at chessbase' Fritz and Chesster right here: http://chessbase.com/shop/product.as...65&user=&coin= Though you wont get anything that isn't in chessmaster too.

__________________________________________________ ____________________________________
Fischer-The-2nd

Chess is 99 percent tactics. - Teichmann

Chess is really 99 percent calculation. - Soltis.

Modern chess is too much concerned with things like
pawn structure. Forget it - checkmate ends the game. - Short

[F16_Filur]

May I suggest one way to make CM play more human? Ok, create a custom character and set the level of strenght between 55-70. Dont know how the strenght really works, but guess it will not choose the highest score on the lower settings. Sometimes or throughout.

Then in the material let it value the opponents pawns to 1.5, set it to overvalue its own knights or bishops to 3.5-4.5.

If setting the value of its own pawns to 2.0 it will calculate the material balance completely wrong and trade off where it shouldnt. Maybe this is going too far.

Then play with the positional settings. Its fairly easy to set up an immature playingstyle. Overly aggressive, little king safety etc.

Iâ´ve let some of my creations play against good players on the net, and they couldnt really believe it was a prog even though I told them from start. Just add weaknesses in the playing style.

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IL2-manager save my mommy (and little sister)!

[Fischer-The-2nd]

Well most/some of the chessmaster personalities does have different material values, like 3.1 for a bishop and 3.0 for a knight. This would mean that the personality isn't going to trade it's bishops for knights.
I don't think that you should value a pawn too high or change the other material drastically. Thinking that computers aren't the greatest positional players around, focing them to play positional isn't helping them at all. (In the top bar in the game room, choose "Game" -&gt; "Set Up Personality" to edit or create your own personalities if anyone didn't know. This gives a wide range of options to create a personality. But it is still only a computer, not a human.)

If you choose to do this you might want to make an opening book to go along with the new personality, instead of choosing some of the very big books that are in chessmaster. This would allow that you can give your personality tactical openings if it's geared toward a tactical player

P.S: If you go here: http://www.tim-mann.org/engines.html you can download alot of costum made chess engines that perhaps will play more human-like than chessmaster9000.

__________________________________________________ ____________________________________
Fischer-The-2nd

Chess is 99 percent tactics. - Teichmann

Chess is really 99 percent calculation. - Soltis.

Modern chess is too much concerned with things like
pawn structure. Forget it - checkmate ends the game. - Short