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, 1169 distinct users have uploaded 3,331,440,379 rows of training data, 65,999,950 training games, and 1,373,243 rating games.

In the last week, 51 distinct users have uploaded 5,453,503 rows of training data, 116,255 new training games, and 2,453 new rating games.

In the last 24h, 32 distinct users have uploaded 953,522 rows of training data, 20,226 new training games, and 261 new rating games.

Look up and view games for this run here.

Networks

A total of 772 networks have been uploaded for kata1.

Latest network: kata1-b28c512nbt-s8061737216-d4556949273

Strongest confidently-rated network: kata1-b28c512nbt-s8032072448-d4548958859

Approximate Elo Ratings Graph
Graph is based on about 1,373,243 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
Bubblesld 119,236 rows generated 2,549 training games 29 rating games
maxueba 95,311 rows generated 2,038 training games 60 rating games
luotiany 88,741 rows generated 1,899 training games 0 rating games
Kabu 82,566 rows generated 1,722 training games 20 rating games
manrelygo 63,570 rows generated 1,352 training games 12 rating games
jojo 63,228 rows generated 1,356 training games 16 rating games
oxgo 63,191 rows generated 1,328 training games 32 rating games
rwk 48,999 rows generated 1,032 training games 16 rating games
ohestnes2 43,846 rows generated 896 training games 12 rating games
ez4u 37,250 rows generated 794 training games 9 rating games
tenuki 36,833 rows generated 780 training games 12 rating games
Odobenus 29,475 rows generated 606 training games 16 rating games
Miles 29,235 rows generated 626 training games 10 rating games
lightvector 29,028 rows generated 631 training games 0 rating games
lbnmg 22,782 rows generated 487 training games 0 rating games

In the Last Week

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
maomaochong 544,477 rows generated 11,746 training games 0 rating games
oxgo 479,244 rows generated 10,249 training games 168 rating games
maxueba 466,833 rows generated 9,904 training games 177 rating games
luotiany 369,476 rows generated 7,993 training games 107 rating games
Kabu 360,733 rows generated 7,592 training games 100 rating games
rwk 340,407 rows generated 7,267 training games 116 rating games
manrelygo 333,665 rows generated 7,038 training games 76 rating games
ohestnes2 291,552 rows generated 6,134 training games 69 rating games
Bubblesld 274,286 rows generated 5,832 training games 73 rating games
ez4u 228,933 rows generated 4,919 training games 75 rating games
Odobenus 196,139 rows generated 4,158 training games 68 rating games
jojo 179,069 rows generated 3,784 training games 48 rating games
tenuki 176,362 rows generated 3,747 training games 64 rating games
Miles 153,601 rows generated 3,238 training games 324 rating games
ttm716 146,003 rows generated 3,119 training games 36 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
maomaochong 150,080,897 rows generated 3,086,758 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
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 78,058,469 rows generated 1,604,785 training games 35,331 rating games
katavip.net 70,355,820 rows generated 1,379,526 training games 18,872 rating games
luotiany 66,777,445 rows generated 1,367,369 training games 9,775 rating games
jameswen429 65,701,378 rows generated 1,211,481 training games 30,013 rating games
zhongtiao1 61,598,432 rows generated 1,301,176 training games 10,961 rating games
badukmegapack 55,997,830 rows generated 1,101,739 training games 18,233 rating games