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Title: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: alikim on February 12, 2011, 03:19:23 PM If I'm running a GPU miner, but I do not have "Generate Coins" option turned on in BitCoin, will it work normally and generate coins?
Or do I need to have it always turned on, regardless of GPU miner? Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: ribuck on February 12, 2011, 03:50:13 PM If you are generating with the GPU, you don't need to turn on "Generate Coins" in the GUI client.
You will know that your GPU is generating by seeing the khash/s figure that it is reporting. Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: ribuck on February 12, 2011, 04:25:29 PM ... there is no good reason any more to have that 'generate' feature in GUI client ... It has served it's purpose, now it's time to retire it. Agreed! Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: alikim on February 12, 2011, 11:41:39 PM thanks guys!
Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: jib on February 13, 2011, 12:06:13 AM ... there is no good reason any more to have that 'generate' feature in GUI client ... It has served it's purpose, now it's time to retire it. Strongly agree. The CPU miner in the client is almost entirely useless. Even if people do really want a CPU miner, it could easily be separated from the client and made to use the getwork API. Having the "generate" feature in the client gives new users the impression that mining is the primary way to get bitcoins. I've seen multiple instances in which people say "this bitcoin thing sucks, mining is too hard, how can I ever get any bitcoins". Then it has to be explained to them that bitcoin is a currency to be obtained by trading goods and services, and sometimes they don't seem convinced. It may be better for Bitcoin if we give normal users the impression that bitcoins are a currency to be bought and sold, and we leave the mining to the enthusiasts and people interested in maintaining the network. At the moment there are users who see bitcoins as just a "collector's item" for people with good CPUs/GPUs. (I actually saw this phrase used in a Slashdot comment). Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: jgarzik on February 13, 2011, 12:18:28 AM If I'm running a GPU miner, but I do not have "Generate Coins" option turned on in BitCoin, will it work normally and generate coins? The "generate coins" option is CPU mining, which is mostly worthless these days -- you'll have to generate for a couple years, before getting a single block, most likely. Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: Anonymous on February 13, 2011, 01:39:48 AM On the second though, from architectural point of view bitcoin and bitcoind approach is way not perfect. They are trying to be a swiss army knife of bitcoin. Able to do so many things none of them really good, jack of all trades and master of none. It might have been a good thing at the beginning. But now it does not look that appealing any more. It is, if I may say so, "window'ish" approach of trying to crum everything and the kitchen sink into one exe file. Wouldn't it simplify life of both users and developers to do it "unix'ish" way. Create a number of tools, each to do one thing well. - a C lib with all the RPC stuff to be compiled into every other language in existance - a bitcoin daemon which does p2p thing on port 8333 - a bitcoinrpc daemon which listens on a given IP:port and provides API - a CLI wallet manager, which does what a normal user needs i.e. sending and receiving the money. - a GUI wallet manager, which does what a normal user needs i.e. sending and receiving the money. - a CPU miner if this feature is still desired so much, with CLI interface. - a CPU miner if this feature is still desired so much, with GUI interface. etc.. Do this and life becomes so much easier for everyone. You speak a lot of sense. Modularity ftw. Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: theymos on February 13, 2011, 10:11:07 PM I agree. A reference CPU miner should be part of the project, though.
Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: unclescrooge on February 13, 2011, 10:21:30 PM ... there is no good reason any more to have that 'generate' feature in GUI client ... It has served it's purpose, now it's time to retire it. Strongly agree. The CPU miner in the client is almost entirely useless. Even if people do really want a CPU miner, it could easily be separated from the client and made to use the getwork API. Having the "generate" feature in the client gives new users the impression that mining is the primary way to get bitcoins. I've seen multiple instances in which people say "this bitcoin thing sucks, mining is too hard, how can I ever get any bitcoins". Then it has to be explained to them that bitcoin is a currency to be obtained by trading goods and services, and sometimes they don't seem convinced. It may be better for Bitcoin if we give normal users the impression that bitcoins are a currency to be bought and sold, and we leave the mining to the enthusiasts and people interested in maintaining the network. At the moment there are users who see bitcoins as just a "collector's item" for people with good CPUs/GPUs. (I actually saw this phrase used in a Slashdot comment). Totally agree too. Title: Re: Is Generate Coins option necessary? Post by: ronaldmaustin on February 13, 2011, 10:28:06 PM Or do I need to have it always turned on, regardless of GPU miner? I don't know what kind of GPU you are using or what kind of CPU you are using but I have found that I get LESS hashs if I turn on 'Generate Coins'. This is likely because the amount of CPU power taken away to generate coins negatively impacts the CPU's handling of what the GPU is doing. |