Archive for the ‘Mining Software’ Category

New cgminer 3.7.8 With Improved Neoscrypt Performance

2, Nov 2014

cgminer-3-7-8-neoscrypt-windows

There is an update of the official cgminer with Neoscrypt support to version 3.7.8 that adds new kernel with better performance and make the miner work with the latest AMD drivers 14.9, something that was not working with the older 3.7.7b miner. We have compiled a windows binary of the new cgminer 3.7.8 Neoscrypt (source) that you can download from the link below and try. Our first test on a AMD Radeon R9 280X without overclock has shown a performance of about 140 KHS, so about 50 percent increase from the older version and some people report going close to 200 with overclocked cards. Since there is still no CUDA miner for Neoscrypt available you can use this cgminer with OpenCL on Nvidia-based GPUs as well, though on Nvidia you are probably not going to see much of an improvement over the previous version of the miner.

– You can download the cgminer 3.7.8 with NeoScrypt support for Windows OS here…

New cpuminer Fork With Multiple Algorithms Supported

31, Oct 2014

cpuminer-multi

If you have some spare CPU power for mining various GPU mineable algorithms along with the GPU mining rigs and use the generated heat to keep you warm at home this winter, then you might want to check out the new cpuminer fork from Tanguy Pruvot (source). This fork has support not only for the common ASIC mineable SHA256d and Scrypt algorithms that you don’t need to bother with on a CPU anyway, but also for many other algorithms such as X11, X13, X14, X15, Cryptonight, Fresh, Blake, Neoscrypt and others. The performance you can get from a single CPU is nowhere near that a GPU can generate, but still if you manage to mine enough to partially cover the electricity used and use the heat generated from the CPU to keep you warm in the winter it might not be that bad… especially if you use the available CPU power of any GPU mining rigs that you are utilizing already.

– To download the latest Windows binary of the cpuminer-multi fork with multiple algorithms support…

Mining Feathercoin After the NeoScrypt Fork with AMD and Nvidia GPUs

27, Oct 2014

neoscrypt-gtx-750-ti-opencl

Feathercoin (FTC) has hard forked from the Scrypt algorithm to the NeoScrypt as was announced earlier this year after block 432000. You need to update your wallet to Feathercoin 0.8.7.0 in order to continue using it after the NeoScrypt update and you need to download a special version of cgminer with support for the NeoScrypt algorithm (link below). The goal of the hard fork away from the Scrypt algorithm is to make FTC not mineable with Scrypt ASIC miners giving back the opportunity to GPU miners to mine the coin. Currently the profitability of mining FTC is quite high compared to other coins that are being mined with GPUs, so there is high interest in Feathercoin at the moment. Do note that here is no special miner dedicated for Nvidia miners to mine NeoScrypt using CUDA, however the version of the cgminer with NeoScrypt support actually works quite well not only on AMD, but on Nvidia GPUs as well using OpenCL. The screenshot above is from a GeForce GTX 750 Ti video card at stock frequencies giving a bit over 40 KHS and with some overclock you should be able to push the performance of a single GTX 750 to about 50 KH/S.

Mining with cgminer 3.7.7B with NeoScrypt support (source) on AMD GPUs has something that you make sure to do to get the best performance out of your GPUs. You need to make sure you have Catalyst drivers 13.11 installed, and then run the cgminer to compile the kernel with the settings you are using, then update to the latest 14.9 drivers and run the miner with the already generated kernel (BIN) file with the old drivers. Make sure you don’t change settings affecting the kernel after getting back to the latest video drivers as this will invoke the compilation of a new kernel that will not work and you will most likely be getting HW errors only. Generating kernel with newer drivers and not using a kernel generated with the older 13.11 drivers will not work and you will be getting only hardware errors instead of actual work being done. This is a bit of inconvenience, but you will have to do the driver trick only once and hopefully there will be a fix for this in the future as well as further performance improvements. Currently we are getting about 90-100 KH/s on a single AMD Radeon R9 280X GPU, so the performance on Nvidia graphics cards compared to AMD is looking very nice considering that we are using OpenCL and not CUDA.

– You can download the cgminer 3.7.7b with NeoScrypt support for Windows OS here…


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