Go faster
Raw throughput: bit tricks, cache-friendly layouts, nodes-per-second engineering, and why speed alone cannot crack the puzzle.
Why it's hard
Build a solver
The lab
experiment
Single-core benchmark
page
The reference engine behind this site
experiment
The JIT backtracker: portable Rust that ties hand-tuned C on hard boards
concept
Going fast: when a solver spends its budget on speed
page
The DFS study
page
How the study is built
page
What each idea buys
page
The repair study
page
How the study is built
page
What each decision buys
experiment
McGavin's C backtracker: the throughput story, built here
experiment
Blackwood's solver, decoded and run here
page
Verhaard's eii: the solver that won the only prize
experiment
Verhaard reimplementation