UCI go with depth and movetime

Question

Is it possible to perform analysis with stockfish for a given depth, but stop in case it is taking longer than a specified time?

Something like this:

go depth 17 max movetime 10000

or

setoption name MaxMovetime value 10000
...
go depth 17

Answer 1

I don't think it's possible to do it in the UCI protocol. Fortunately, it's really easy to do it yourself. For example, in my SmallFish app (http://www.smallchess.com), to save the phone's battery the app would send the "stop" signal to the engine after a minute of analysis. The command is very simple:

stop

You will just need to create a timer yourself and send the stop signal to terminate the search immediately.

Answer 2

Yes, it is (now?) possible. If stockfish reaches the specified movetime before it reaches the specified depth, it will stop searching

PS C:\Users\Marvin\Desktop> .\stockfish-windows-x86-64.exe
Stockfish 16 by the Stockfish developers (see AUTHORS file)
go depth 100 movetime 10
             ^^^^^^^^^^^
info string NNUE evaluation using nn-5af11540bbfe.nnue enabled
info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 2 nodes 20 nps 10000 hashfull 0 tbhits 0 time 2 pv g1f3
info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 1 score cp 2 nodes 40 nps 20000 hashfull 0 tbhits 0 time 2 pv g1f3
info depth 3 seldepth 2 multipv 1 score cp 16 nodes 70 nps 35000 hashfull 0 tbhits 0 time 2 pv c2c3
info depth 4 seldepth 2 multipv 1 score cp 29 nodes 101 nps 50500 hashfull 0 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e4
info depth 5 seldepth 3 multipv 1 score cp 42 nodes 131 nps 65500 hashfull 0 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e4 g8f6
info depth 6 seldepth 4 multipv 1 score cp 59 nodes 489 nps 163000 hashfull 0 tbhits 0 time 3 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4
info depth 7 seldepth 6 multipv 1 score cp 31 nodes 1560 nps 312000 hashfull 1 tbhits 0 time 5 pv e2e4 d7d5 e4d5 d8d5 g1f3
info depth 8 seldepth 6 multipv 1 score cp 40 nodes 2105 nps 350833 hashfull 1 tbhits 0 time 6 pv e2e4 d7d5 e4d5 d8d5
info depth 9 seldepth 8 multipv 1 score cp 48 nodes 4500 nps 409090 hashfull 1 tbhits 0 time 11 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 g8f6 f3e5 f6e4 d2d4 b8c6
info depth 10 seldepth 8 multipv 1 score cp 48 nodes 5254 nps 437833 hashfull 1 tbhits 0 time 12 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 g8f6 f3e5 f6e4 d2d4 b8c6
                                                                                         ^^^^^^^
bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e5

The opposite also works, of course. If stockfish reaches the specified depth before it reaches the specified movetime, it will stop searching:

PS C:\Users\Marvin\Desktop> .\stockfish-windows-x86-64.exe
Stockfish 16 by the Stockfish developers (see AUTHORS file)
go depth 1 movetime 1000000
   ^^^^^^^
info string NNUE evaluation using nn-5af11540bbfe.nnue enabled
info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 2 nodes 20 nps 20000 hashfull 0 tbhits 0 time 1 pv g1f3
     ^^^^^^^
bestmove g1f3