NEW VERSION 2.3.4, APRIL 26 2012

This version is mostly identical to CGMiner 2.3.4, but has a number of fixes and improvements that aren't included in CGMiner. Since I only develop on Linux, I have completed cross-compling support for creating Windows binaries. While they have had a bit of testing, there is always a chance I missed something. Please report any issues you have.

Also, since this is a FPGA/GPU miner, without the central focus on GPUs that CGMiner has, I made sure to make the Windows binaries so they can be used on FPGA-only mining rigs in addition to FPGA+GPU rigs (CGMiner Windows binaries require *some* OpenCL implementation).

Full changelog:

• New maintainership of code with modular FPGA/GPU focus, under BFGMiner name
• Complete working support for cross-compiling Windows builds on Linux.
• Fix usage of low --scan-time settings so it doesn't busy-loop
• JSON API: Add new 'devdetail' command to get fixed device information
• JSON API: Implement driver abstraction for extra device status
• Icarus: Use epoll to wait for serial port input properly, when available
• Icarus: Workaround buggy USB-UART that causes Icarus to stop mining rarely
• Icarus: Estimate mining hashrate correctly, calibrated from real-world data
• Icarus: Parallelize work setup with Icarus hash search improving performance
• Icarus: More reliable detection and runtime
• OpenCL: Move GPU-specific data fetching from JSON API to OpenCL driver
• OpenCL: Dynamically load OpenCL library, to be more vendor-independent and allow use without actually having OpenCL (i.e. FPGA-only rigs).

I'm trying to minimize conflicts, so I can continue merging cgminer into BFGMiner. I'm also trying to do my own development with cgminer parent commits, so Con can continue to pick-and-choose which parts he adds into cgminer.

Ah well at least I can say I had one thing to do with it ...
I came up with the name
(Bitcoin FPGA GPU Miner)
Or the other name for the obvious reason
(Doom/Quake)

BFGMiner... awesome name.  

Why is this thread pinned?

It's the same thing. He just rebranded it and will be maintaining the codebase separately from cgminer's so that the FPGA stuff works how he wants it to.

FWIW, the difference between CGMiner 2.3.4 and BFGMiner 2.3.4 consists of (with the rename filtered out) 3252 3259 added lines, and 392 399 removed. If it was just a rebranding, I'd have a much easier time figuring out what caused that administrator requirement on Windows. :/

I was really hoping I wouldn't have to report this, but.....

I am seeing a slight performance increase (over CGMiner 2.3.3....although I haven't tried CGminer 2.3.4 yet).
More specifically, the overall Shares/Minute average, over my small GPU-Only mining farm (dually confirmed by the increased hash rate my pool is reporting back to me, based on submitted shares).

My 5 rigs at home are all running Win7 x64 and it's not specific to any one GPU platform, SDK or driver version.
I've got a 6xxx GPU rig running SDK 2.4/CAT 11.12, a 6xxx/5xxx mixed GPU rig running SDK 2.4/CAT 11.12 as well as a few 5xxx GPU rigs running SDK 2.1/CAT 11.12.

I should also note that I didn't have any problems running BFGMiner (no 'admin' error as described above). I used the same BAT files/shortcuts to launch it, as I was using for CGMiner 2.3.3 and just changing the executable's name in the file. Same settings/overclocks/temp/fan/API and everything....no problems.

My Web Monitor (using the API output) still all works and again, the only difference I noticed was that my GPU Voltage output (DEVS/GPU Voltage) was spitting out a value to 13 decimal places, but still worked 100% with nothing changed.

As all my rigs are headless & Windows 7 x64 based. They all login automatically (using an administrator privileged account, although NOT the actual Administrator) and hit the desktop without interaction, so that I can access each rig's UltraVNC server for management without having to worry about running it as a service.

Again, nice job Luke.
(it hurt to say that....lol)
bitlane.

Hi,

thank you for this work. Some questions:
Do you implement the current git for reducing network load from cgminer?
How I have to start it only with a ztex Board (is 1.15x and y supported?) on a normal notebook. When I want to do this I get the error no OPENCl is installed?

Nice project but i cant seem to start my ZTEX with it: "Cant get handle (-12)"

Any ideas?