apgsearch
The Ash Pattern Generator (or apgsearch) is a cross-platform program for running random initial configurations in Conway's Game of Life and examining all of the objects produced. The current recommended version is 5.x:
Feature comparison
| Version 5.x (C++) | Version 1.x (Python) | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical speed (per core)* | 7200 soups/sec | 300 soups/sec |
| Multi-core searching | Yes | No |
| Dependencies | GCC, Python | Python, Golly |
| Requires compilation | Yes | No |
*on an Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590 CPU @ 3.30GHz.
A more comprehensive comparison is available on the wiki page and Catagolue tutorial.
Version 5.x (C++)
The source code and instructions are on the GitLab repository.
Alternatively, there is a precompiled Windows version of apgsearch v5.43.
Version 5.x (built from source) can also run on CUDA-capable GPUs.
Version 1.x (legacy)
You need compatible versions of Python 2 and Golly together with the search script:
- apgsearch v1.1
- Python 2.7 (already installed on Mac OS X and most Linux distributions)
- Golly (strictly earlier than 4.0)
You'll also need to generate a payosha256 key unless you want to upload your soups anonymously (in which case use the key '#anon').