Chessmaster

[Celadus]

I like the chessmaster series of chess software. In particular chessmaster 9.
It is a pity that chessmaster opertates on WIN 98 ME and WIN XP. and not later software. I have a DELL Latitude D531 laptop with WIN XP just to play Chessmaster.

[synthese]

Hi,
You can install 9000, 10th Edition and Grandmaster Edition on Window 10 with a little workaround. You have to use compatible mode while installing and running with all exe files. Use administrator mode too. That's it. I love playing Chessmaster 10 th Edition on my Certabo Eboard and on my Millennium M55 Eboard. Both are supported by the Chessmaster driver that Graham O'Neil has coded. It is like Heaven!

Regards,
Harry

[jarek]

Hi,
You can install 9000, 10th Edition and Grandmaster Edition on Window 10 with a little workaround. You have to use compatible mode while installing and running with all exe files. Use administrator mode too. That's it. I love playing Chessmaster 10 th Edition on my Certabo Eboard and on my Millennium M55 Eboard. Both are supported by the Chessmaster driver that Graham O'Neil has coded. It is like Heaven!

Regards,
Harry

Hi Harry,
does Chessmaster 10 natively support DGT and Graham's driver makes Certabo/Millennium emulate DGT?
But as far as I remember Chessmaster supported natively DGT (or was it Tasc?) until version 5500 or 6000.

Can you please explain Harry what drivers/patches did you use?
I would love to play Chessmaster 10 on Win 10 with an electronic board (I have DGT and Chessnut Air)

Thank you!

[GONeill]

Hi Jarek,

The days when it was just Certabo/Millennium (and Novag UCB) are some time ago! Now I have drivers for Certabo, Chessnut, DGT, DGT Pegasus, Millennium, Novag Citrine, Novag UCB, Saitek OSA, Square Off Pro and Tabutronic. And you are right, for Arena, Fritz/ChessBase, LucasChess and Shredder the drivers work by emulating the DGT Rabbit driver.

But I also converted them to accept UCI and Winboard commands so that they could be run as chess engines. This means you can load the engine version of the driver into Chessmaster and start an engine vs engine game where one is my driver and the other engine is the personality you want to play against. There are limitations as engine matches don't allow take back moves (although Steven at SCIDvsPC has amended his program so that my driver will allow that too) but at least you can use your board to play games or custom positions.

The downloads for Chessnut and DGT are on my web page (setupNUT.exe and setupDGT.exe) and they will lead you through loading the drivers onto your PC. Adding them to Chessmaster (or any other GUI) you will have to do yourself. The ReadMe.pdf files give more information.

All the best,
Graham

https://goneill.co.nz/chess.php

[jarek]

Thank you Graham for your answer (now everything seems clear!) and for your marvelous drivers!
best regards,
Jarek

[patmetheny1234]

A question for Goneill. Is there a possibility that in the future your controller for Chessmaster will allow you to recover moves?
Playing with your controller in Chessmaster is a pleasure, but it would be great if you could undo moves.
Anyway thank you very much Goneill

[GONeill]

Hi Pat. Unfortunately not. There is nothing in the Winboard (or UCI) protocols that allows an engine to take back a move, or even send a new position. It can only be done if the GUI author makes amendments to their program to allow it and it's clear that Ubisoft have no interest in Chessmaster any more. It's a pity they don't just release the source code to the community as even after all these years it's still a very nice GUI.

[patmetheny1234]

thank you very much anyway

[BenRedic]

You can install 9000, 10th Edition and Grandmaster Edition on Window 10 with a little workaround. You have to use compatible mode while installing and running with all exe files. Use administrator mode too. That's it.

9000 (and GM edition) runs just fine under Windows 10 x64 for me, with no workarounds and no compatitibility mode. I have only noticed one issue, and it is a negligible cosmetic one: In 9000 there is a tiny grey band across the top few pixels of the title bar. That's it. Apart from that it works just fine.

I remember having problems with 7000 back in the day, though. Found it in the bargain bin in a store, bought it and brought it home. The cover said it required Windows, but when I opened it the CDs said it required Windows 95/98. I used 2000 at the time. Ah well, I tried to install it, and it seemingly installed and ran just fine. Until I actually started playing. Regardless of which level/personality I chose, it would play totally useless moves. But hey, at least I can say that I have beaten Chessmaster 7000

Anyway, I took it back and got CM 8000 instead. That ran just fine in 2000. It also works in XP, but has some issues where the menus can disappear if you click on them in a certain order. Annoying, and confusing if you're not used to it, but possible to work around if you know how.

[Murat]

On windows 11 that pixel issue goes away if I minimize the program then maximize it.
It is still there but it blends with the main bar colour.