Release notes for Ceres 0.88

Upgrading Ceres

Upgrading Ceres typically involves the following steps:

download the ZIP file and unpack files in a new directory
copy forward the Ceres.json successfully used from the prior installation into this directory
overwrite the LC0.DLL in the directory with LC0 binaries (identified in DirLC0Binaries entry in Ceres.json) by copying one of the LC0.DLL files included in this ZIP file (based on the version of CUDA installed on your computer). Note that the CUDA version of LC0 must have been downloaded into that directory (probably both 0.26.3 and 0.27 will work).

Compatibility with many clients and GUIs is improved. Extensive testing has been performed against Nibbler and Arena and Cutechess, and also the tournament managers in Cutechess and Arena and cutechess-cli.
The default parameters for search (e.g. for CPUCT) are updated based on the "ZZtune" values created by the LC0 team. These parameters deliver much better play quality, commonly by +20 to +40 Elo. The next version of LC0 (v0.27, currently at release candidate stage) will incorporate exactly these same parameters.
Additional setoption values are supported in UCI mode, including WeightsFile and FPU (thanks to Kovax).
Thanks to the PR 35 by j33. the tree plot utility is directly integrated, allowing beautiful plots of the tree structure directly from UCI command line with "show-tree-plot." See #35.
Bugs relating to long searches (>33mm nodes) crashing and time forfeits on certain configurations have been fixed.
The issues relating to endgame play with tablebases are now completely resolved, with Ceres able to play directly from tablebase moves at root correctly (this requires that the included LC0.DLL be updated).