Archive for the ‘Mining Software’ Category

New NBMiner 27.7 With Improvements for Nvidia Mining of HNS and HNS + ETH

15, Mar 2020

The latest NBMiner 27.7 update comes with improvements for Handshake (HNS) and HNS + ETH Dual mining on Nvidia GPUs, bringing a bit better performance as well as some fixes like for the NVML initialization failure on certain cases and for ETH mining on NiceHash. With the latest performance improvement NBMiner 27.7 is again taking a lead for Handshake mining performance from the latest GMiner. With the latest performance improvements a mining rig with 6x 1080 Ti’s gets closer to what Blackminer’s FPGAs with HNS support, though GPUs are still a bit slower and with a bit higher power usage. Nevertheless mining HNS now may still be worth it with the expected availability of the first Handshake ASIC miner sometime in June.

We remind you that the NBMiner is a closed source GPU miner for Nvidia CUDA and now AMD as well that is available for both Windows and Linux operating systems and it has the following developer fee built-in: tensority_ethash 3%, tensority (Pascal) 2%, tensority (Turing) 3%, ethash 0.65%, cuckaroo & cuckatoo & cuckaroo_swap 2%, progpow_sero 2%, sipc 2%, bfc 3%, hns 2%, hns_ethash 3%.

– To download and try the latest NBMiner 27.7 Nvidia and AMD GPU Miner for Windows/Linux…

Checking Out the Scala (XLA) Project’s Mobile Phone Miner

13, Mar 2020

The Scala (XLA) project, formerly know as Torque (XTC), and Stellite (XTL) prior to that, may have some controversy surrounding it along the way, but we are not going to be talking about that. The project has just released their Scala Mobile Miner v1.0.0 intended for Android smartphone owners to mine XLA on their devices and we just wanted to give it a go and see how it works, but more of that in a moment. Scala (XLA) uses the s called DefyX algorithm for mining. DefyX is a customized hybrid algorithm combining RandomX, Kangaroo12 and Yescrypt with the memory requirements optimized to fit more energy-efficient CPU and ARM architectures according to the developers. Apart from Android smartphones that can just now be used to mine Scala (XLA) coins, you could use a normal computer processor to mine with significantly higher hashrate for quite some time already.

Let us take a look at the Scala Mobile Miner software that you need to download directly as an APK for the moment and manually install as it is not yet available on the Google Play store. We like the fact that the apps starts with a warning message noting the important things regarding the battery and CPU having a high load on your smartphone. Then at the Settings screen there are the options for how many of the CPU cores to use and what temperatures to maintain as safe for both the processor and the battery. Then all you have to do is choose a mining pool and set your worker or wallet for the pool in order to start mining.

Now as far as mining is concerned you should not expect too much from a smartphone, even if it is top of the line Android smartphone. We have tested with Huawei Mate 30 Pro and got around 50 H/s as hashrate with 4 out of the 8 CPU cores active. If running with full 8 cores the CPU thermal threshold of 65 degrees Celsius is reached immediately, not to mention that you still would want to be able to use your phone while the miner is running on the background. With 4/8 CPU cores for mining it is possible, not draining that much battery and keeping reasonable operating temperatures for both the processor and battery.

So in short we like the Scala Mobile Miner, it is well made and works fine maintaining the safety and usability of your device. As far as performance is concerned, well there is more to be desired, especially if you compare the hashrate of just around 50 H/s to a high-end desktop CPU such as Intel Core i7 6850K or AMD Ryzen 3900X like we did and you can see the results below:

Intel Core i7 6850K (6C/12T):
– XLArig 5.0.1 – 2100 H/s
– SRBMiner-Multi 0.4.0 – 4650 H/s

AMD Ryzen 3900X (12C/24T):
– SRBMiner-Multi 0.4.0 – 11970 H/s

The latest official XLArig 5.0.1, based on XMRig, is not the best performing miner at the moment with support for the DefyX algorithm used by Scala (XLA). You should opt out for the latest SRBMiner-Multi 0.4.0 significantly better hashrate for mining Scala (XLA) using the DefyX proof of work algorithm. Do note that the DefyX algorithm has been used for a while already by the Scala project and prior to that XLA coins were mined using CryptoNight algorithm, so it is both not a new project and not a new algorithm. If you are looking for crypto exchanges where to trade the mined XLA coins, you can go to Trade Ogre, Crex.

New GMiner 2.00 With Support for ProgPoW (SERO) Algorithm

9, Mar 2020

The latest GMiner 2.00 miner adds support for the ProgPoW algorithm used by the Super Zero (SERO) project. SERO’s use of the ProgPow mining algorithm is not new,but apparently it has lately caught more attention of users and hence more happening around the project lately. There is a catch however, the ProgPow support of Gminer requires you to have the latest Nvidia CUDA Toolkit installed or you will be getting the “Failed to initialize NVRTC library” error message wen trying to run the miner software for mining SERO. This is a few gigabytes of installation package, though in theory you can get the smaller network installer and select to install only the Runtime Libraries and not the full package that includes unnecessary data as far as mining is concerned and no actual CUDA software development is required… nevertheless it is bothersome requirement for a mining software. Older algorithms supported by the miner should work fine without the CUDA Toolkit, so it is a requirement only if you want to mine SERO with the latest GMiner.

The GMiner miner software was originally only an Nvidia GPU miner, although some algorithms are already supported on AMD GPUs as well. Do note that GMiner is a closed source miner for Nvidia and AMD GPUs with binaries available for both Windows and Linux, there is a 2% developer fee built-in the software.

– To download and try the latest release of the Gminer v2.00 Nvidia and AMD GPU miner…


top