delorie.com/game-room/chess/faq.html   search  
WebChess FAQ

* HTML gnuchess FAQ
* Old text gnuchess FAQ

The board doesn't change after I enter my move!

WebChess uses a special hack to prevent your history list from becoming too long. If you're using Netscape, make sure you don't have the ``verify document'' option set to ``Never''. Otherwise, try reloading the page with your reload option or the reload button on the page.

The pieces are black on black.

You're probably running under Windows with a 16-color display. Try switching to one of the monochrome sets.

Not all of the pieces loaded - the rest are ``broken images''.

Try reloading the page. Make sure you didn't tell your browser to not load images. Also, try using the "Unified Board" download, which uses a single board image.

The server cheats!

Unlikely. More likely, it got confused. Record the moves you made (they're listed at the bottom of the page) and try the game again. If you can provide a list of moves that proves the server cheats, post it on the gnu.chess newsgroup.

I can't win! It's too hard.

Yup, SGIs are powerful workstations. Try a shorter think time. If you're already at one second, keep trying - eventually your skill will increase enough to beat it.

It's too easy to win. The computer can't handle a Sicilian attack.

Try increasing the think time. If you know the game won't be challenging with a given tactic, try a different one.

I asked for 5 seconds of think time, but it takes longer than that.

The server is configured to time itself in cpu seconds, not wall clock seconds. That way, if two servers are running simultaneously, it won't degrade its performance. However, if two servers are running, it will take ten seconds for them each to get five seconds of run time.

Where do I send bug reports?

If the bug is in the selection of moves the server makes, it's probably in the gnuchess program itself. Bugs in gnuchess should be reported to the gnu.chess newsgroup. If the bug is in the web server, the page layout, or interface, it's probably something I can fix, so mail them to me.


  webmaster     delorie software   privacy  
  Copyright © 1996     Updated Jun 1996