Chess for Android 2.6 and other Android chess programs

[Alex54]

I got the Toshiba Folio 100 Android tablet,using it exclusively for chess.
It works extremely well with the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core, but I face an important disadvantage: it does not incorporate the
Android Market Application (AMA).
For people in my situation- there are many- there should be places where we could buy and/or download chess programs more easily. Peter Österlund ( Droidfish) has already solved this question in his web, as you can download his program DIRECTLY from it.
If somebody in this forum knows how to help me with this, will be welcome.

I already downloaded the following chess programs:

Droidfish 1.27, MP and FREE. The strongest Android program I have seen up to now, based on the Stockfish 2.0.1
Chess Genius Pro 2.3.0 , for me the best introduction chess program to the general public
Shredder 1.2, extremelly strong ,very complete and now optimized for 10 inchess tablets
I downloaded the Chess for Android 2.5.5 version and charged the Robbolito and other UCI engines from a Bik´s web link, but the only one which works is Robbolito (terrific even without opening book). I will continue trying as may be I do something wrong in the process.
But the question is that with the new Chess for Android 2.6 version I cant download it anywhere out of the Android Market
( Aart, help me please!)and it is a pity , as the new interface is highly enhanced, much more comfortable and usable.
Aart´s idea is very useful and practical, and in the future we will speak a lot about it, with new vesions and UCI engines incorporated. As far as I know , up to now it is the only Android platform with UCI capablities.
Everybody is waiting for the Hiarcs for Android, that is supposed to be released rather soon. For me the best program in the market although it did not give the jump to 64 bits. We will have to wait and see.
With the Four Great ( Droidfish, Shredder, Genius and Hiarcs) , and the Chess for Android platform, incorporating UCI engines, I think the Android O.S. chess programs quota is rather complete today.
The crucial point at Android is now Multi-processing ( MP). The searching differences between the Droidfish 1.26 on my Acer 200 smartphone ( Snapdragon at 1 GHz), and the 1.27 MP version on my tablet are huge. If Peter is able to give his program MP capabilities , others can. The advantages are enormous, and the playing strengths too.

[AartBik]

(Aart, help me please!)

As for the distribution of my application to devices that do not have the Android Market installed yet, I am working on a solution. Stay tuned! As for the problem with some UCI engines, forgive me for asking a trivial question, but did you uncompress the other files before installing them (I could not help but notice that all engines except RobboLito appear in compressed packages)?

[AartBik]

I have made Chess for Android available as direct download. After download completes, simply clicking the apk will start the install (make sure to check "unknown sources" under settings=>application first).

http://www.aartbik.com/MISC/DATA/Chess.apk

You can also use a barcode scanner on the attached QR code.

[thorstenczub]

I got the Toshiba Folio 100 Android tablet,using it exclusively for chess.
It works extremely well with the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core, but I face an important disadvantage: it does not incorporate the
Android Market Application (AMA).

hi alex. congratulation for buying a tegra 2 android device.
i also have a tegra 2 android device, the advent vega.
i guess our devices are very similar.

for the advent vega, there were special customers roms, i could succesfully burn into the flash rom.

these customer roms could also be used for other devices similar to the advent vega, e.g. the
POV Mobii pad.
maybe there is a customer rom available for the toshiba folio too ??

take a look here:
http://android.modaco.com/content/toshi ... t-working/

[Alex54]

Dear Aart,
thank you very much for solving my problem so quickly. I downloaded your last CFA version ( is it 2.6 or 2.6.1? ) in less than one second.
I already had solved the download of the rest of the engines. In this moment I have working on the CFA the following UCI engines: Robbolito, Houdini, Stockfish 1.9/ 2.0, Ivanhoe , Toga II and obviously Bikjump.
Now your following step would be to increase/complete the time settings, as for a whole time for the game ( 5-10-15-30 minutes- 1-2 hours, for instance), and the increment times ( 1-2-3-5-10-15-30 seconds).
All the engines are playing without an opening book so far. So, it would be interesting to implement polyglot books, or may be others, into CFA to be able to charge them to the engines.
On my Folio 100 I can charge to ONE engine a maximum of 128 MB of memory. Not bad. If I get two for matching each other, the total memory I can adapt them is 64 MB EACH ( 64+64 = 128 MB). With those memory figures, they work perfectly well.
With other chess programs on my tablet , the situation is as follows:
Droidfish 1.27, which works incredibly fast as it is MP. I do not know exactly the memory it takes, as there is no control/data about it , but in accordance with my tests results, may be no less than 64MB, but I am not sure.
Genius has Permanent Brain/ Ponder button, but no memory data at all. I suppose it takes 16 MB automatically, as it is the maximum it can load on my smartphone version, which incorporates hash table choice.
Shredder has a coarse Elo control, but no memory data at all. On my smartphone version it can load a total of 32 MB- it also has hash table options-, so may be in this one it also gets its maximum capacity automatically.
Thanks again , Aart, and congratulations for your great platform and efforts in improving it, as it is and will be a most useful tool on the Android field.
Best regards,
Alex54

[Alex54]

Many thanks Thorstenczub for your help.
I entered that forum and asked help to people owing Folio, having the same problems. I am waiting for news now.
Regards,

Alex54

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Scid on the Go was updated this morning with PGN import support. It seems to work very well. There is still no game browser (which would be nice, of course), but it's a great improvement!

[Swaminathan]

Chess for Android is fantastic!

Also, you might want to check out Cuckoochess which was made available for Android quite recently. The Cuckoochess for PC was released about an year ago, and it had the modest strength 2400 or so IIRC

[gekko]

Hi,

just to let you know: I've updated Scid on the go yesterday to add a game list. The game list also takes the current filter (search) into account.
A direct download is available here: http://code.google.com/p/scidonthego/

BTW: Scid support is implemented as a content provider, so every chess program on Android could access scid database files (currently read-only) if Scid on the go is installed (that's how Droidfish does it).

Cheers,
Gerhard

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Hi,

just to let you know: I've updated Scid on the go yesterday to add a game list. The game list also takes the current filter (search) into account.
A direct download is available here: http://code.google.com/p/scidonthego/

BTW: Scid support is implemented as a content provider, so every chess program on Android could access scid database files (currently read-only) if Scid on the go is installed (that's how Droidfish does it).

Cheers,
Gerhard

The new game list is great! Thanks very much.

My 2 wishes for Scid on the go:
- Native PGN file support, so I don't have to convert my PGN file to a Scid database before using it
- Training mode could have some better way of letting you know if you chose the "wrong" move (or a move for which there is no variation). As it is, it just creates a new variation. I'd prefer if it would warn you (or if that would be an option, or something, I don't know what). This could be useful for openings training, too, for which there is currently no android app.

Otherwise, it's coming along really well!

Jeremy