KataGo Distributed Training

About This Run

KataGo is a strong open-source self-play-trained Go engine, with many improvements to accelerate learning (arXiv paper and further techniques since). It can predict score and territory, play handicap games reasonably, and handle many board sizes and rules all with the same neural net.

This site hosts KataGo's first public-distributed training run! With the help of volunteers, we are attempting to resume training from the end of KataGo's previous official run ("g170") that ended in June 2020, and see how much further we can go. If would like to contribute, see below!

Updates

  • 2024-05-02 - First "b28" neural net uploaded! This new larger neural net runs more slowly, similar to the old 60-block nets, but should be much stronger. From tests on discord, under normal usage this series of nets should be stronger than the b18 nets given equal total time, despite the slower speed, and be by far the strongest nets so far on a per-visit basis. We've also upgraded contributing to require KataGo v1.14.0 or later to support this net.

  • 2023-12-28 - KataGo v1.14.0 is released! This version adds support for a new larger and hopefully stronger "b28" neural net that will likely be ready within the next months. It also has a large number of more minor bugfixes and changes.

  • 2023-06-13 - We are upgraded now - kata1-b18c384nbt-s6582M is the first 18-nested-block neural net with the new improved output heads! You will need to be on version v1.13.0 or later to use the nets from here onward.

  • 2023-05-23 - KataGo v1.13.0 is released! Supports a new version of neural nets with improved output heads for policy and error prediction and various other analysis and search and training improvements. Once most or all contributors upgrade, we will be able to switch to the improved nets. If you're an active contributor please upgrade when you can!

  • 2023-03-04 - We're fully switched to v1.12 now and the first new net of the new architecture, b18c384nbt, has been uploaded for testing! Note the learning rate has been kept far higher than every other network, so it might not be as strong yet as the "uec" version of the new net on the releases page.

  • 2023-02-18 - KataGo is now up to version v1.12.4, with some bugfixes for training data generation! Once enough users are upgraded to this version and particularly off of v1.11, we can try the new improved b18 net and architecture for rating games and data generation. Please upgrade if you can!

  • 2023-01-07 - New release of KataGo, v1.12.0, supporting a new neural net architecture! The new net, b18-uec is about as strong as the 60-block nets but should be faster to run.

  • 2022-05-16 - Disabling support for versions older than v1.11.0 in selfplay data contribution so that we can make full use of new graph search parameters for search during selfplay.

  • 2022-03-20 - KataGo v1.11.0 is released! New graph search algorithm instead of tree search, and various parameter improvements.

  • 2022-01-27 - Switching to 60-block net for selfplay data contribution! 40-block net will continue to be trained as well on the data and be rated as well.

Downloading KataGo

If you simply want to run KataGo, the latest releases are here and you can download the latest networks from here. You very likely want a GUI as well, because the engine alone is command-line-only. Some possible GUIs include KaTrain, LizzieYzy, Lizzie, and q5Go, more can be found searching online.

How to Contribute

Contributors are much appreciated! If you'd like to contribute your spare GPU cycles to generate training data for the run, the steps are:

First, create an account on this site, picking a username and secure password. Make sure to verify your email so that the site considers your account fully active. Note: the username you pick will be publicly visible in statistics and on the games you contribute.

Then pick one of the following methods.

Likely easiest method, for a home desktop computer:

  • Download and install KaTrain
  • Inside the GUI menu, select the option for distributed training, provide the username and password for the account you created, and choose a few settings, then just let it run!

Command line method: if running on a remote server, or have already set up KataGo for other things, or if you want a command line that will work in the background without any GUI, or want slightly more flexibility to configure things:

  • Download KataGo from the latest release.
  • Edit the contribute_example.cfg that came when you downloaded KataGo, use a text editor to fill in your username, password, and the few different settings you want.
  • Run it on the command line like: ./katago contribute -config contribute_example.cfg on Linux, or katago.exe contribute -config contribute_example.cfg on Windows. If it is working, it should print out various stats as it runs, including when it finishes and uploads a game.

Either way, once some games are finished, you can view the results at https://katagotraining.org/contributions/ - scroll down and find your username! If anything looks unusual or buggy about the games, or KataGo is behaving weirdly on your machine, please let us know, so we can avoid uploading and training on bad data. Or, if you encounter any error messages, feel to ask for help on KataGo's GitHub or the Discord chat.

For advanced users, instead of downloading a release, you can also build it from source. If you do so, use the stable branch, NOT the master branch. The example config can be found in cpp/configs/contribute_example.cfg

And if you're interested contribute to development via coding, or have a cool idea for a tool, check out either KataGo's GitHub or the this website's GitHub, and/or the Discord chat where various devs hang out. If you want to test a change that affects the distributed client and you need a test server to experiment with modified versions of KataGo, it is available at test.katagodistributed.org, contact lightvector or tychota in Discord for a testing account.

Stats for kata1

This run is named kata1 and began on 2020-11-28 20:23:43 UTC.

Data Generation

Across all time, 1234 distinct users have uploaded 3,449,131,739 rows of training data, 68,508,874 training games, and 1,419,292 rating games.

In the last week, 55 distinct users have uploaded 10,399,247 rows of training data, 222,934 new training games, and 4,169 new rating games.

In the last 24h, 37 distinct users have uploaded 1,328,266 rows of training data, 28,235 new training games, and 1,203 new rating games.

Look up and view games for this run here.

Networks

A total of 788 networks have been uploaded for kata1.

Latest network: kata1-b28c512nbt-s8506341120-d4676281577

Strongest confidently-rated network: kata1-b28c512nbt-s8446540032-d4660424551

Approximate Elo Ratings Graph
Graph is based on about 1,419,292 rating games using mid to high hundreds of playouts. Ratings might still be mildly inflated due to only playing other KataGo nets, but otherwise are fresh and unbiased and involve a variety of nets to avoid rock-paper-scissors. Vertical bars indicate approximately a 95% confidence interval.

Graph is based on games at equal visits rather than equal compute time, since the former is easier to control on widely varying user hardware. Larger/slower networks will be advantaged due to getting more total compute time. Given particular hardware, one can approximately correct for this by benchmarking to measure the speed difference, each doubling of speed may be worth somewhere around 150-250 Elo.

Click and drag to zoom. Double-click or click on a button to reset zoom.

Approx Elo given equal time rather than equal visits (might NOT be accurate, varies with hardware)

Top Contributors

See here for a full list of contributors for kata1.

In the Last 24h

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
xkas 399,744 rows generated 8,394 training games 0 rating games
Bubblesld 186,322 rows generated 3,989 training games 46 rating games
maxueba 86,163 rows generated 1,850 training games 24 rating games
Friday9i 85,301 rows generated 1,795 training games 0 rating games
tenuki 54,051 rows generated 1,120 training games 24 rating games
rwk 49,306 rows generated 1,050 training games 16 rating games
ez4u 45,707 rows generated 987 training games 16 rating games
zhanghong64 43,413 rows generated 898 training games 8 rating games
Schelp76 42,704 rows generated 925 training games 12 rating games
congxinzhisong 41,730 rows generated 914 training games 0 rating games
lightvector 37,484 rows generated 786 training games 24 rating games
dahuojiwo2 34,179 rows generated 748 training games 12 rating games
Miles 28,576 rows generated 603 training games 8 rating games
lbnmg 25,042 rows generated 538 training games 8 rating games
ttm716 20,348 rows generated 421 training games 8 rating games

In the Last Week

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
xkas 2,881,958 rows generated 61,335 training games 0 rating games
Bubblesld 1,286,670 rows generated 27,371 training games 383 rating games
zhongtiao1 900,921 rows generated 20,019 training games 81 rating games
congxinzhisong 453,108 rows generated 9,691 training games 0 rating games
tenuki 389,448 rows generated 8,208 training games 172 rating games
zhanghong64 373,291 rows generated 7,929 training games 85 rating games
rwk 344,300 rows generated 7,318 training games 104 rating games
Friday9i 332,617 rows generated 7,043 training games 0 rating games
maxueba 332,021 rows generated 7,098 training games 128 rating games
ez4u 288,721 rows generated 6,175 training games 108 rating games
lightvector 264,210 rows generated 5,635 training games 128 rating games
Isla 195,844 rows generated 4,216 training games 1,900 rating games
家疼跑谱 179,119 rows generated 3,917 training games 0 rating games
Miles 169,668 rows generated 3,604 training games 171 rating games
Odobenus 163,669 rows generated 3,516 training games 48 rating games

Overall

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
yaoge123 426,223,037 rows generated 8,513,497 training games 136,620 rating games
luckyangman 342,435,207 rows generated 6,418,062 training games 140,115 rating games
水底2022 264,920,064 rows generated 5,461,179 training games 127,379 rating games
Friday9i 172,588,821 rows generated 3,505,410 training games 50,360 rating games
maomaochong 154,862,408 rows generated 3,190,344 training games 57,157 rating games
AiqiGo 148,551,176 rows generated 2,819,086 training games 53,342 rating games
jiusi010302 111,549,344 rows generated 2,157,135 training games 32,148 rating games
maxueba 84,973,152 rows generated 1,751,784 training games 37,912 rating games
TheOnly92 79,778,929 rows generated 1,653,024 training games 29,834 rating games
VegetableKnife 79,204,855 rows generated 1,470,688 training games 23,367 rating games
zhongtiao1 70,598,759 rows generated 1,494,194 training games 12,029 rating games
katavip.net 70,355,820 rows generated 1,379,526 training games 18,872 rating games
luotiany 68,240,287 rows generated 1,398,446 training games 9,775 rating games
jameswen429 65,701,378 rows generated 1,211,481 training games 30,013 rating games
badukmegapack 56,275,554 rows generated 1,107,721 training games 18,327 rating games