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, 1197 distinct users have uploaded 3,391,468,321 rows of training data, 67,279,151 training games, and 1,389,964 rating games.

In the last week, 64 distinct users have uploaded 7,747,133 rows of training data, 164,411 new training games, and 2,320 new rating games.

In the last 24h, 34 distinct users have uploaded 1,066,459 rows of training data, 22,771 new training games, and 417 new rating games.

Look up and view games for this run here.

Networks

A total of 780 networks have been uploaded for kata1.

Latest network: kata1-b28c512nbt-s8297309440-d4620010143

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

Approximate Elo Ratings Graph
Graph is based on about 1,389,964 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
Friday9i 275,261 rows generated 5,852 training games 24 rating games
Bubblesld 103,459 rows generated 2,241 training games 36 rating games
maxueba 78,661 rows generated 1,672 training games 35 rating games
oxgo 65,500 rows generated 1,401 training games 32 rating games
zhanghong64 59,092 rows generated 1,267 training games 28 rating games
tenuki 58,846 rows generated 1,274 training games 28 rating games
Kabu 56,197 rows generated 1,163 training games 16 rating games
rwk 47,171 rows generated 1,007 training games 19 rating games
lightvector 37,289 rows generated 771 training games 24 rating games
ez4u 33,825 rows generated 708 training games 8 rating games
Miles 29,181 rows generated 645 training games 0 rating games
lbnmg 28,815 rows generated 615 training games 4 rating games
斩风绝尘 25,834 rows generated 566 training games 15 rating games
Odobenus 23,412 rows generated 506 training games 4 rating games
ttm716 21,772 rows generated 464 training games 0 rating games

In the Last Week

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
Friday9i 1,311,108 rows generated 27,803 training games 40 rating games
Bubblesld 778,999 rows generated 16,547 training games 222 rating games
oxgo 485,846 rows generated 10,244 training games 168 rating games
tenuki 413,210 rows generated 8,786 training games 177 rating games
zhanghong64 406,939 rows generated 8,550 training games 144 rating games
Kabu 385,584 rows generated 8,061 training games 100 rating games
凤鸣围棋 366,194 rows generated 7,731 training games 53 rating games
rwk 346,368 rows generated 7,311 training games 95 rating games
maxueba 321,673 rows generated 6,802 training games 127 rating games
lightvector 267,215 rows generated 5,629 training games 96 rating games
maomaochong 266,830 rows generated 5,727 training games 0 rating games
ez4u 215,298 rows generated 4,603 training games 95 rating games
ohestnes2 212,246 rows generated 4,520 training games 52 rating games
Odobenus 209,392 rows generated 4,412 training games 60 rating games
Miles 201,616 rows generated 4,330 training games 36 rating games

Overall

User Training Rows Training Games Rating Games
yaoge123 426,219,998 rows generated 8,513,348 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 168,030,577 rows generated 3,408,723 training games 44,481 rating games
maomaochong 154,760,352 rows generated 3,187,805 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 80,933,349 rows generated 1,665,883 training games 36,410 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
katavip.net 70,355,820 rows generated 1,379,526 training games 18,872 rating games
zhongtiao1 68,555,720 rows generated 1,449,618 training games 11,834 rating games
luotiany 68,172,098 rows generated 1,397,014 training games 9,775 rating games
jameswen429 65,701,378 rows generated 1,211,481 training games 30,013 rating games
badukmegapack 56,167,233 rows generated 1,105,371 training games 18,293 rating games