Mining Super Zero (SERO) Using the ProgPoW Algorithm on Nvidia GPUs

16 Mar
2020

The ProgPoW mining algorithm is still not widely used by crypto projects, some of you migh remember Bitcoin Interest (BCI) as the first to switch their PoW mining to ProgPoW, but now the project is pretty much dying a slow death. And while we are waiting to see when and if Ethereum (ETH) will finally switch from Ethash to ProgPoW as a mining algorithm, there is another project that has been using ProgPoW for a while now – Super Zero (SERO) that you may play around with if you want to see the current status of ProgPoW miners. There are of course some other projects using ProgPoW as well, but among them SERO is pretty much the most popular one. We remind you that ProgPoW or Programmatic Proof-of-Work was designed in a way that it utilizes graphics processors to their maximum in order to provide an equal level performance without favoring a specific GPU manufacturer or being able to actually provide much faster hashrate if implemented on ASICs. Some good places to trade the coin include Citex, Gateio and Hotbit.

Recently GMiner has added support for ProgPoW mining for SERO on Nvidia GPUs, however that was a bit problematic as it required the user to install the respective Nvidia CUDA Toolkit for the video drivers you have used. The latest GMiner 2.01 has addressed this problem by including the required runtime libraries needed for ProgPoW support, so things are easier and less problematic using GMiner 2.01 for mining SERO on Nvidia GPUs using the ProgPoW algo. GMiner however is not the only mining software to support ProgPoW, it is just the latest one to add support, prior to that you could mine using MBMiner and also prior to that with TT-Miner. In fact TT-Miner (Trade-Tec Miner) was one of the first to introduce ProgPoW support along with the controversial and now not available anymore Progminer software.

Now, the big question that remains is which mine of the three should you be using if you are mining SERO with the ProgPoW algorithm on Nvidia GPUs? Well, performance wise all of the miners are doing pretty much the same in our up to date tests done on GTX 1080 Ti… it seems that ProgPoW support is based on the same kernel in all of the miners and not much has been further optimized (maybe not much is possible) since last year. So how can you make the right choice if hashrate is the almost the same on all of the 3 available miners, you should simply look at other things, like the dev fee that these miners have. GMiner and NBMiner do come with 2% developer fee for ProgPoW mining while TT-Miner has only 1% dev fee for all of the supported algorithm, so it seems like the best choice for the moment.

– To download and try the latest TT-Miner 3.2.2 for SERO (Super Zero) ProgPoW mining…

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.

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