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February 2009

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MASON Multiagent Simulation Toolkit <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 3 Feb 2009 21:48:49 +0100
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Pelle Evensen <[log in to unmask]>
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To: MASON Multiagent Simulation Toolkit <[log in to unmask]>
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Randy Casstevens wrote:
> Do some random seeds give better quality results for
> MersenneTwisterFast?  I have heard that random seeds should be odd
> numbers, large numbers, and/or prime numbers, but does it matter for
> MersenneTwisterFast?
>   
In short, for any good quality PRNG (the MersenneTwister would be one) 
the choice of seed does not matter at all as far as "quality" goes.

The only thing to possibly worry about is if you start many different 
simulations with nearby seeds. For some generators (depending on how the 
seed is expanded to the internal state of the generator) this will be a 
problem and for some others, it won't be. What the state of the Mersenne 
Twister as implemented in MASON is, I don't know.

A better (or at least safer) approach than the Mersenne Twister would be 
to have a generator that generates distinct streams. This article 
discusses the desirability of distinct streams; 
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lecuyer/myftp/papers/rstream.pdf

Regards,
  Pelle

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