First impressions
:D I like it!
Been dabbling with breve on an on-off basis, and today I mistakenly reformatted the drive where it resided, so I went to acedragon once more to discover this gem.
It's really nice in that it saves its results.
But about that saving I have a question; I can't clearly make out how it is triggered... I know its the .XML file etc. but when I launch the screensaver, let it run until it reaches, say 14/25, then quit and relaunch, it restarts at 10/25 or some other, to me arbitrary looking step. I once had a 'highscore' from a previous run, when it restarted on gen 1 ,1/25.
Oh, BTW: the 'announcements' section to this board is only accesible for mods, I guess that's not supposed to be so?
I have made the same
I have made the same experience with both the Screensaver and the IDE on both Mac and Windows. When the simulation is stopped (not paused), then the last creature is being repeated after restarting.
Furthermore, the average is also affected by stopping/restarting the simulation. When a simulation is stopped and restarted again, the average of the generation does not represent the actual fitnesses of all the creatures anymore. The one creature next to last before the interruption will get a fitness score of zero when the average is being calculated.
I don't know whether this is only a curiosity of the average calculation or if it is also the score used for selecting the creatures (which would have an effect on their evolution as well).
I am using Breve 2.7.2, and I think too that it is a great piece of software!
First impressions
Thanks for the comments!
I've fixed the permissions on the announcements section -- you should be able to read it now. Let me know if you have any other problems with the forums.
The situation you describe with the saved creatures is a little funny. Are you using a machine with two monitors? If so, that's the problem, and it has been fixed for the next version. Otherwise, I don't think I've come across that before!
- jon
First impressions
I have a one-monitor setup. (for convienience I put the specs in my sig)
It is like the screensaver either 'forgets' runs in a given generation or it doesn't write them always after a completed run of a given creature..
Maybe that's because I 'force' the screensaver to run using interactive corners option?
in doing so, i.e. starting and stopping it repeatedly, it progressively 'forgets' runs...
Say I let it run for an hour, and I have something like generation 3; 12/25, then move the mouse so it quits, then put the mousepointer topleft (the interactive corner that triggers the screensaver) it goes to, say gen 3: 10/25... If I repeat that on/off operation it finally ends at gen 3; 1/25, so no 'finished' generations...
First impressions
I let it run 'unenforced'
just wait till the screensaver kicks in automatically (after 3mins, the minimum setting in preferences)
So I had 25/4.... 25/5... and then I move my mouse so it exited.
Then I sat back and waited 3 minutes...
It restarted at 25/4, but ideally that should be 25/5, because 25/4 had already finished? So also in 'unenforced' mode it either doesn't write results immediately after completion of a run, or doesn't read the 'results' correctly.
Now, losing one run isn't a biggie, but it's a little blemish nontheless.
Make no mistake about it, I'm very, very happy with this, when I saw mr Sims footage about these things running on the connection-machine, in the mid-nineties on a documentary, it just blew me away and I'd never have imagined I'd see something similarly (I know it isn't a neural network) running on my desktop one day! :D