. .
Also, .PGN “defeats” the purpose of .CBH, because processing of huge .PGN files is slower than for indexed .CBH files.
. .
Are we talking nanoseconds here?
You can do save as .pgn that way you can still use the file in other programs. When I open pgn files from my Mon Roi, I work with them in Chess Base and then save them as pgn files so that I can upload them into Chess Flash for blog postings.
The one thing I can’t seem to do is get Chessbase to recognize Fritz 10’s existence on my hard drive. How does one add it to the engine list?
Erm, are you suggesting that I won’t be able to set it up using ChessBase’s analysis engine additions (the UCI interface?) Would be strange, considering they’re both made by ChessBase. (Though I have had one report, directly from ChessBase, that I may encounter problems trying to set it up in 2007 Light Premium.) We’ll have to see.
And I use ChessBase because I’ve used it back to CB 6 Light - I know to work ChessBase far better than Chess Assistant or SCID. All three (plus Winboard!) are excellent for db purposes - just depends on what you intend to do. As to engines, I have Rybka 2.2, and R3 is on my list to get (someday!)
Verily so! Now I just have to pay off the laptop. 
Sell bodily fluids. That’s the easy, quick way for this kind of thing. 
Databases are not chess engines. The Universal Chess Interface is a free open communication protocol that Chess base (Fritz) was forced to use or be left behind. Today it is hard to find an engine does not support UCI.
It’s been a while since I’ve done it but I think it goes like this: in ChessBase, open a game window and go to the Engine menu. Select “Create UCI Engine.” There’s a file selector that should allow you to navigate to the directory where the Fritz EXE file lives. I’m not sure if that’s all or if you must also add the newly created UCI engine to the active engines list, using another menu in CB. If you get past the first step, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
– Hal Terrie
The interesting thing about ChessBase is you can buy one of their programs every year, and it comes with a year’s membership to playchess.com, which is pretty decent since it costs about the same as an ICC subscription. I haven’t really compared the two, in terms of tournament/match coverage, play, or “free” instruction, but it would be interesting to hear comments from those who have.
PS I have a vested interest in ICC, in that I’ve played at least 40,000 games on there. What a waste of a life 
I’m sorry. We seem to be talking at cross-purposes here.
I am well aware of what databases are, what Fritz is, and what UCI is. I was confused by your statement that, “Fritz is the only program that uses propriatory software.” Every playing program is, “proprietary,” in terms of the evaluation algorithms they use. (At least, if not open-source licensed…) If the engine can communicate by UCI - and I assume F12 can - then one should be able to use any interface one wants to use with it.
I gather from your later posts that you are referring that .cbh is a proprietary data format. Which is a different thing, if you’ll pardon my saying so.
But I still don’t understand the objection, since at least in ChessBase I can import from or export to PGN in addition to CBH. Also the last time I checked Chess Assistant can also read .cbh files as read-only. Perhaps if you explain what you meant by, “That makes it impossible to use with any other data base or program.”
Forigve me for not understanding; perhaps this is something particular to Fritz you are referring to.
You understand. See my first question.
I don’t understand, either. You have a large *.cbh work file & you want to share it with someone not on the ChessBase platform. Just create a *.pgn file, drag & drop. Yes, some features are lost (multimedia annotations, e.g.). But anything that a chess player would care about is still there.
If PGN itself supported more features, there would be no need for *.cbh.
For all its flaws, the MegaBase is a very good reference DB. That’s another strong reason to stay with CB.
Having said all that, I prefer open source formats, too.
Yeah, as long as the Chessbase products can all import and export pgn files, I don’t see the complaint about them using cbh format for databases while they’re inside the Chessbase program.
Last time I asked about this, I was told that there was a limit of 8000(?) files that could be converted at a time, and that doing this with a multi-million game database would be annoying enough that no one I talked to was willing to do it for me (assuming I bought the database, etc.).
There is an upper limit, but it’s bigger than 8,000 in CB 10. I created a 13,210 game file of games 1560 to 1900 in a minute or so.
Work files are typically much smaller: mine are generally under 1000 games & thematically grouped. My experience is that bigger work databases = less productivity.
Suppose you want to do all your research & work in PGN. You can still use ChessBase plus MegaBase (CBH format): search MegaBase, copy to clipboard, pull results into your PGN work file.
You would not be able to query the reference DB except via ChessBase, but I don’t find this an inconvenience.
The limit referred to is for ChessBase Light, not for the full version.
Any idea if that refers to Light by itself, or Light Premium also? (I can’t say I’ve ever moved big CBH files to PGN.)
OK. I can see what you’re saying then, even if I’d disagree a little with it. Were someone to design a true open-source db format that could index and search as fast as CB (or CA, which has an equally proprietary data format - as least I assume it is,) and would become as popular as CBH has, then I’d consider going with it.
Such a format would need to segment player data / game data / results / openings / etc. in different tables in such a way that makes sense for rapid searching, easy indexing, and be relatively bullet-proof. And, such a multi-tabled design would need to be either in a single db file or compressible down to one file as in cbv archives. Then there would have to be some kind of transfer utility for converting at minimum PGN.
That is possible, preumably, but a little more complicated than the PGN standard would be to achieve. It would have to be accomplished without treading on the toes of any patents, if any, in existing chess db design.
Then you’d need companies or projects willing to support it…
I have long thought that a game dB system could be designed to work with either Access or OpenOffice Base. But it wouldn’t be a trivial project by any stretch of the imagination.
All in all, I’ll stick with ChessBase, Fritz, and any other engines I can get to run… If I can get them to run in Win7.
Small Subthread:
I’ve just purchased Fritz 12 as my first chess software. I’m running it with Windows XP Pro SP3 on a 2.8 GHz Pentium D with 1 MB of RAM and a terabyte HDD with 80% free space.
Every once in awhile (maybe once every 5 hours?) it suddenly freezes up just as I go to the main course tree trunk - so solid that I can’t even reach Task Manager with CTRL-ALT-DEL and have to do a cold start with the on-off button.
On other occasions, clicking on the Fritz 12 icon just pops up the hourglass which quickly vanishes and Fritz doesn’t open. A cold start will fix this too.
Has anybody else experienced similar problems with Fritz 12?
M. David Johnson
I’m not experiencing the freezes that you are with Fritz 12. Have you downloaded the program updates?
Regards,
John