Options Use the Options dialog to assign player sides or to choose one of the installed Chessengines as opponent. Furthermore you can adjust the appearance of the chess board and the pieces, choose one of the various 3D playing environments, alter the rendering performance and quality, set up background music and soundeffects or start a Networkgame with another player on a local network or the internet.
White/Black: Choose "Player" for local players or one of the listed Chessengines you want to play the appropriate side. The listbox Level enables you to adjust the playing strength for the choosen Chessengine. Level: The playing strength of the choosen computer Chessengine. Higher strength means more time for calculating the move, this can last up to several hours for higher values depending on the choosen Chessengine. Lower Strength means more simple playing because the computer opponent doesn't look forward as wide. You may stop the computer player calculating the next move at anytime by pressing the button. Scenery: Use the image list box on the top right side of the dialog to change the playing environment. The first one in the list switches to the 2D board, the others are different kinds of 3D environments. Furthermore you may adjust the appearance of the board and the pieces for every environment individually by using the listboxes Board, Material and Set of pieces. Set of pieces and material: You can adjust the default settings of the choosen environment for the chess board and/or the pieces by choosing another board and/or piece set from the list boxes. The list box Set of pieces contains different sets of standard, non animated chess pieces as well as several animated piece sets. Additionally you may switch the Material for the non animated chess pieces. For animated set of pieces you may also choose different ones for both sides, e.g. Medieval and Dungeon. Size of pieces and uplift (3D): To alter the Size of the pieces and the way the computer pieces will move on the board, drag the appropriate bar by holding down the left mouse button and moving the mouse to the left or to the right inside the bar. The Uplift value determines the elevation height for the none animated opponent pieces when they move. If this value is zero the pieces will just slide on the board, otherwise they will elevate when moving to the target field according to the Uplift setting. Board reflection (3D): This option adds a mirror effect to the chess board. However this effect needs additional cpu power, if you notice that the performance of the game is slow on your computer you should turn this feature off. Also this effect is only available if your graphics card supports this feature. Piece reflection (3D): Turns the calculation of light reflections on figures on/off. If this option is on the chess pieces will look more realistic but older graphics cards may not support this feature. Shadows (3D): Switches shadows on/off. Because rendering shadows needs a high amount of additional time it is recommended to turn this feature off in case you are experiencing a slow game performance on your pc. 2D-View (3D): Shows/hides a additional 2D-View of the position when playing in 3D mode. Animated pieces(3D): Turns the animation of the chess pieces on/off in case that a animated set of pieces is chosen. If this option is turned off you can move the pieces of an animated piece set with the mouse in the same way as the standard pieces by taking a figure and dragging it to the target field. If this option is turned on you just have to click on the figure and the target field to enter a move, animated pieces will walk to the target field by itself. Use the Speed of move bar to adjust the general move speed and the animation speed for animated piece sets by dragging the bar holding down the left mouse button to the left or to the right inside the bar. Sound effects: Turns the sound effects on or off. Use the Volume bar to adjust the volume of the sound effects by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the bar to the left or to the right. Music: Turns the background music on or off. Use the list box to select a piece of music, you can add additional music pieces by copying a midi or mp3 file into the music folder which is located in the program folder. Use the Volume bar to adjust the volume of the soundeffects by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the bar to the left or to the right. Window mode: Use this button to switch between Fullscreen and Window mode. The Window mode enables you to resize and move the window. Statistic window: Shows up a statistic window which outputs messages from the Chessengine, Board coordinates: Shows or hides the board coordinates at the border of the chess board. Teaching mode: Turns teaching mode on/off. If this option is turned on, the program marks all possible target fields on the board for the choosen chess piece and shows threatened pieces with flashing colors. Openings library: Switches the usage of the openings library on/off. If this option is turned on, the computer opponent first looks for a standard move in the library before calculating one. Physics engine : This option enables or disables the integrated physics engine for the chess pieces. If this option is enabled the pieces will react quite realistic to collisions with each other. The positions of the pieces are reseted automatically after every move or by pressing . Networkgame: To play a Networkgame on a local network or the internet you have either to connect to an already existing Networkgame or to create a new one. To connect to an already existing Networkgame just click the button Connect to game. The list shows all currently open internet games which have been created by someone and still not have been connected to. Choose one entry from the list and click the Connect button to establish a connection with the creator of the game on the internet. Click the button Update List to get the most recent list of open games. If you want to play on a lokal network, just enter the IP of the other computer into the field IP and click the Connect button. To create a new Networkgame to enable another player to connect to, click the button Create game. You may enter a short description into the input field beside the button. Your game will be shown to other players in the list above until you delete it by pressing the button again or someone connects to it. You will be notified as soon as someone has joined your game. After someone has joined the game, the current game position from the player who has created the game will be transfered to the player who has joined the game. Both players may start a new game, alter the current position by using the Notation Window, load a saved game or change the side to play when they are on turn. Just click the colored label in the options dialog which shows your current color to change the side you want to play. Press N, C or to open a chat window. To disconnect from a network game simply click the button Create game respectively Connect to game again. Hint: If a firewall is installed on either side the appropriate side has to configure it so that port 20000 tcp is given free to enable a connection otherwise the connection will be blocked by the firewall. In case you are connected to the internet by a router make sure that this port is mapped to your computer as well.