autochess

[goldminer999]

Hi

I have received a lot of PMs asking to rename engines and also a lot of people have asked about how to rename an engine. For anyone interested I will attempt to explain it here as best as I can but it can be tricky so you need to try it a few times to get it right. Please don't send me lots of questions if you are having difficulties as I won't have time to answer them all -just follow what I have said carefully and patiently and you should be able to work it out. For anyone who doesn't want to do this - just continue to ask me and I will do it for you. By the way I take no responsibility for the use you make of a renamed engine I am just helping out with this tutorial as has been requested.

Here we go:

1) You need to use a hex editor. I use the Cygnus Hex Editor which is a free download from:
http://download.cnet.com/Cygnus-Hex-Edi ... 48945.html
Install it then open it. Do file/open and click on the EXE you want to edit. Make sure you have kept a copy of the EXE before you do this in case it gets messed up and you have to start again.

2) You need to find the engine name (there are hundreds of lines of code). The best way is to do this is to do Edit/Find and then type "id name" or "author" into the search box. You need to type into the right hand side of the search box (the left is for hex characters and the right is for words). Tab to get over to the right. This will take you to the part of the code that has the engine name.

3) Now you need to overtype the engine name with the name that you want to use. Then close it and save changes and you have the renamed engine. However you have to be very careful to do this accurately. PLEASE READ ON.

4) You have to be very careful that when you make a change you must leave everything else in the lines above and below it in exactly the same position on the lines otherwise it won't load. So everything in the line above and below and to the left and right of the change has to be the same and in the same position as before.

5) Just one character out of place or a "." instead of a space - means the engine will not load. A space in hex = 20 and a full stop = 2E so you may need to change these to fill in any extra characters. Where there was a space before you have to leave a space, and where there was a full stop (".") before you have to leave a "." afterwards.

6) Also if you have moved things across to the right (by doing an insert) or to the left (by doing a delete) accidentally - even by by one character - again the engine will not load. If the name you are now typing in is shorter than the original name you must fill in the rest with spaces so that everything is in exactly the same relative position as before else you will disturb the code. So if the original name had 12 characters and the new name you overtype it with has 8 characters you must fill in the remaining 4 with spaces so that it is still 12 characters long.

7) It gets more tricky when you want to rename to a name that is longer than the original as somertimes there is not enough spaces on the line so you have to split the word over 2 lines (eg. "Stock" on one line and "fish" on the line above it). Then you have to get it in exactly the right position in the 2 lines otherwise you get a space in the word, or it will not load. Another thing is where you see Id Name %s %s - this means it is expecting 2 words (each %s = a word string) in the engine name with a space inbetween (because there is a space between %s and %s). So if you wrote Stockfish - it comes out like Stockf ish or Stoc kfish). You then have to remove the space betweeen %s and %s to make it Id Name %s%s (no space) - but then have to shift things along to make sure everything is in the same position as before you started - then type in the new name.

If you make a change then find the engine won't load in Fritz - go to you your engines file and remove what you have just created (it will be a name.uci). Then try again and so on. You may need to do it a few times until you get it right as every EXE is different to rename. Some are straightforward and some are very fiddly. Always test your EXE will load in Fritz correctly before you try using it online

It is hard to explain this but you will see as you try some renaming and have to learn by trial and error.

Good luck

[rybka.lover]

Very detailed Sticky this please

Nice write-up.

[tue_mouche]

[quote="goldminer999"]Hi

Hi gold!
please what interest can we get from this delicate operation!
have a nice day.

[goldminer999]

Hi,
This is if you want to use an engine on Playchess.com that they have banned (iggorit, Ivanhoe, Firebird) - you can rename it as a different engine and use it online.

[XsupremeX]

Very nice tutorial goldminer.

[tue_mouche]

Hi,
This is if you want to use an engine on Playchess.com that they have banned (iggorit, Ivanhoe, Firebird) - you can rename it as a different engine and use it online.

indeed it's very interesting gold! thanks a lot! have a nice day.

[elcriollito]

good tutorial