Engine Setup

Masterboard does not bundle an engine — you download one on first launch via the setup wizard, or at any time from Settings. This page explains how to download an engine, verify it is running, and switch to a custom engine.

Checking the active engine

The active engine is shown — and selected — in Settings → Engine Configuration and in the Engine panel’s selector. If no engine is configured, see Troubleshooting below.

Downloading an engine from within the app

Masterboard can download common engines directly without leaving the app.

1. Go to Settings → Engine Configuration.
2. Click + Download engine… below the engine list.
3. The Download Engine dialog lists available engines with their version and a short description.
4. Click Download next to the engine you want. A progress bar tracks the download.
5. When the download finishes, the engine shows Installed and becomes available in the engine list immediately — no restart required.

Available for in-app download:

• Stockfish — the strongest conventional engine, recommended for analysis. The correct CPU build (e.g. AVX2/BMI2) is detected and downloaded automatically.
• Leela Chess Zero (Lc0) — a neural-network engine, downloaded with a matching network.
• Maia — neural networks (rated 1100–1900) that play in a human-like style rather than at maximum strength. Useful for studying how a human of a given level is likely to respond. Choose the rating closest to your opponents.

Using a custom UCI engine

Any UCI-compatible engine works with Masterboard — Leela Chess Zero, Komodo Dragon, Stockfish variants, and others.

1. Go to Settings → Engine Configuration.
2. Click + Add local engine… below the engine list.
3. Navigate to the engine binary (.exe on Windows, executable file on macOS/Linux) and select it.
4. Masterboard sends a UCI handshake to validate the binary. If the engine responds correctly, it is added to the list; click it to make it active.

Caution

If the handshake fails, an error is shown and the previous engine remains active. Check that the binary is a UCI engine and is not already running in another application.

Configuring engine settings

These settings are found in Settings → Engine Configuration:

Hash size

The hash (transposition table) is the amount of memory the engine uses to cache previously computed positions. Larger values allow the engine to search deeper without re-computing.

System RAM	Suggested hash
8 GB	128–256 MB
16 GB	256–512 MB
32 GB+	512–1024 MB

See Engine Configuration for more on this setting.

Threads

The number of CPU threads the engine uses. Setting this higher makes the engine stronger but uses more CPU.

A good rule of thumb: set threads to your number of logical CPU cores minus one, leaving one core for the rest of the system.

Full game analysis depth

The search depth used by automated game analysis, default 22. (The number of candidate lines for live analysis — MultiPV — is set in the Engine panel, not here. See Reading Results.)

Troubleshooting

No engine configured:

• Masterboard looks for Stockfish in (1) an engines/ folder next to the app binary, and (2) the system PATH.
• On Windows: place stockfish.exe in an engines/ folder in the same directory as Masterboard.exe.
• On macOS/Linux: place the Stockfish binary in engines/ next to the app, or install it system-wide via your package manager (brew install stockfish, apt install stockfish, etc.).

Engine stops responding:

• Restart Masterboard. The engine subprocess is restarted automatically on app launch.
• If the problem persists, try increasing the hash size or reducing the thread count in Settings.