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, 1165 distinct users have uploaded 3,307,672,384 rows of training data, 65,494,128 training games, and 1,364,219 rating games.

In the last week, 59 distinct users have uploaded 7,739,113 rows of training data, 165,102 new training games, and 3,009 new rating games.

In the last 24h, 36 distinct users have uploaded 1,008,092 rows of training data, 21,420 new training games, and 479 new rating games.

Look up and view games for this run here.

Networks

A total of 769 networks have been uploaded for kata1.

Latest network: kata1-b28c512nbt-s7973934848-d4533506571

Strongest confidently-rated network: kata1-b28c512nbt-s7915807488-d4517482653

Approximate Elo Ratings Graph
Graph is based on about 1,364,219 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
elexunix 244,592 rows generated 5,174 training games 56 rating games
maxueba 98,312 rows generated 2,066 training games 38 rating games
oxgo 70,502 rows generated 1,502 training games 23 rating games
luotiany 55,013 rows generated 1,184 training games 18 rating games
rwk 50,921 rows generated 1,100 training games 6 rating games
Kabu 48,784 rows generated 1,055 training games 16 rating games
ohestnes2 42,697 rows generated 907 training games 16 rating games
manrelygo 42,694 rows generated 888 training games 16 rating games
dahuojiwo2 39,982 rows generated 850 training games 4 rating games
家疼跑谱 34,089 rows generated 721 training games 0 rating games
tenuki 32,839 rows generated 691 training games 4 rating games
ez4u 32,567 rows generated 704 training games 16 rating games
Odobenus 31,862 rows generated 669 training games 8 rating games
Bubblesld 25,676 rows generated 524 training games 17 rating games
chumhoiwai 24,292 rows generated 488 training games 16 rating games

In the Last Week

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
elexunix 1,455,104 rows generated 30,897 training games 340 rating games
soya 616,002 rows generated 12,975 training games 172 rating games
maomaochong 555,856 rows generated 12,058 training games 0 rating games
maxueba 520,604 rows generated 11,073 training games 201 rating games
luotiany 423,540 rows generated 8,970 training games 176 rating games
oxgo 380,065 rows generated 8,121 training games 143 rating games
rwk 342,966 rows generated 7,272 training games 102 rating games
Kabu 320,058 rows generated 6,865 training games 77 rating games
manrelygo 301,600 rows generated 6,407 training games 96 rating games
ohestnes2 292,602 rows generated 6,228 training games 96 rating games
tenuki 287,858 rows generated 6,109 training games 104 rating games
Bubblesld 267,123 rows generated 5,683 training games 108 rating games
ez4u 233,689 rows generated 5,005 training games 96 rating games
Odobenus 207,461 rows generated 4,395 training games 100 rating games
dahuojiwo2 189,520 rows generated 4,159 training games 32 rating games

Overall

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
yaoge123 426,204,099 rows generated 8,512,991 training games 136,616 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 164,193,275 rows generated 3,327,003 training games 44,140 rating games
AiqiGo 148,551,176 rows generated 2,819,086 training games 53,342 rating games
maomaochong 148,157,412 rows generated 3,045,235 training games 57,157 rating games
jiusi010302 111,549,344 rows generated 2,157,135 training games 32,148 rating games
TheOnly92 79,774,990 rows generated 1,652,946 training games 29,834 rating games
VegetableKnife 79,204,855 rows generated 1,470,688 training games 23,367 rating games
maxueba 76,147,234 rows generated 1,564,210 training games 34,570 rating games
katavip.net 70,355,820 rows generated 1,379,526 training games 18,872 rating games
luotiany 66,215,342 rows generated 1,355,283 training games 9,596 rating games
jameswen429 65,701,378 rows generated 1,211,481 training games 30,013 rating games
zhongtiao1 56,411,896 rows generated 1,191,182 training games 10,332 rating games
badukmegapack 55,912,168 rows generated 1,099,889 training games 18,206 rating games