We maintain support for quite a few x86 ISA extensions but relied on the end
user to select the binary that is best for their system. We can detect at
runtime which architecture to use, and ship a single binary (per OS/ISA
combination). This PR does so, maintaining performance.
This is what I've landed on after quite a few iterations. Basically, we build
each arch separately, use `cpuid` to select one, and jump to that arch's main
function. Some details:
- The preprocessor macro `UNIVERSAL_BINARY` is defined when building for the universal binary.
- The Makefile target `universal-object-[no]pgo` is added, which produces a `stockfish.o` in each arch's build directory.
- To prevent symbol collisions between the multiple builds, we `#define Stockfish Stockfish_[arch]`. Furthermore we wrap the `main` function in `namespace Stockfish { }`.
- We can still get PGO data by linking to a per-arch binary, with `Stockfish_x86_64_avx2::main` as `main`, and running `bench`.
- For arches not supported by the host we can use Intel SDE – this is what we do in CI.
- When embedding the NNUE, we use C++26/C23 `#embed` instead of `INCBIN`. The issue with `INCBIN` is that it injects assembly directives that we have no control over.
- To ensure there's only one copy of the networks in the final binary, we define the network data as weak symbols in each per-arch build. Then, in the final link, we add a special nnue_embed.cpp which provides strong symbols.
- This does require GCC 15. Statically linking libstdc++ allows the binary to still run on older OSes though. And latest msys2 already does static linking + is based off GCC 15.2.0
building can be as simple as
make -j profile-build ARCH=x86-64-universal
or using the sde if the host doesn't support all architectures supported in the
universal binary, and the default host compiler is not recent enough.
make -j profile-build ARCH=x86-64-universal RUN_PREFIX="/path/to/sde -future --" CXX=g++-15
This change is also integrated in CI, so universal binaries are available as
downloadable artifacts.
Next we could also do ARM64, especially Android (all Apple silicon users use
the same binary). It also might be worth getting this to work with clang.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/6740
No functional change
WINE_PATH started as a Wine-specific knob, but it’s now used more generally
as a command prefix to run the built engine under wrappers
like Intel SDE, qemu-user, etc.
- Add RUN_PREFIX as the supported “run wrapper/prefix” variable in Makefile
- Set WINE_PATH as a deprecated alias
- Update CI and scripts to use RUN_PREFIX
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/6500
No functional change
do not upload some unneeded intermediate directories,
disable running authenticated git commands with the checkout action.
Thanks to Yaron A for the report.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5435
No functional change
The same functionality is available by using COMPCXX and having another variable which does the same is just confusing.
There was only one mention on Stockfish Wiki about this which has been changed to COMPCXX.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5154
No functional change
This refactors the CI workflows to group some
logic and makes sure that all (pre)release
binaries are actually tested.
The screenshot below shows the execution logic of
the reworked ci,
https://github.com/Disservin/Stockfish/actions/runs/7773581379.
You can also hover over the cards to see the
execution flow.
The `matrix.json` and `arm_matrix.json` define the
binaries which will be uploaded to GitHub.
Afterwards a matrix is created and each job
compiles a profile guided build for that arch and
uploads that as an artifact to GitHub. The
Binaries/ARM_Binaries workflow's are called when
the previous step has been completed, and uploads
all artifacts to the (pre)release.
This also fixes some indentations and renames the
workflows, see
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/actions,
where every workflow is called `Stockfish` vs
https://github.com/Disservin/Stockfish/actions. It
also increases the parallel compilation used for
make from `-j2 to -j4`.
It now also prevents the prerelease action from
running on forks.
A test release can be viewed here
https://github.com/Disservin/Stockfish/releases.
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/5035
No functional change
