Post my rep in here.  

It's not a new OS, it's an old one. It's not even a new distribution, nor is it being actively developed. You're accusing me of trying to "make a quick buck"? Idiot... Perhaps if you had as much reading comprehension as you do self-righteous anger, you'd understand what I posted the bounty for. Where the hell is your contribution Mr. 9 posts?  Where is your effort to do anything for someone besides yourself?

Let me break it down for you. I put up money, not a fortune, but certainly not insignificant, to help fund an OPEN SOURCE application that everyone, even you would be free to use. I asked for donations from the community to help encourage a developer to take the project seriously. No one, NOT ONE PERSON donated even a satoshi, or sent me a line of code. Nothing has been done by anyone, because the only thing that gets people moving on the forum is money. Everyone wants to take, users mostly want free mining software and developers mostly want to get paid. No... I was foolish to think that a community so focused on making money would ever spend a cent to help itself out.

As to Linux vs Windows.. really? You are going to sit there and preach that it's sooo much better of an OS and that people need to learn to use it, while at the same time asking questions because you can't figure it out yourself.


Linux is better at *some* things, Windows at others. I use Windows 8 only because 8 will let you run one more card than Win 7. The Metro/Modern UI is crap, but when I need to do something, I don't have to dick around on forums and spend useless hours trying (for example) to get a goddamn driver update. I just download the update, install it and it's ready to go. I use monitoring programs that are written for Windows. Plain and simple, Linux is not in anyway user friendly. It's continued reliance on the damned CLI after 20+ years of GUIs is the exact problem. Even BIOS FFS has moved on to GUIs. Commodore, yes Commodore from the 80's had a GUI developed for it (GEOS). But Linux...no, the CLI is superior -- except it's not; it's obsolete.

You know the one thing, the very one thing I don't have to do on Windows, well almost never? Build from source. I don't have to worry about endless dependencies, or if I have the right build environment, with the right version of GCC. Programmers don't automatically expect everyone to build a windows app from source. Does it make sense for a thousand people to waste time building the same application over and over, or just one person to do it? I *do* know how to use Linux, and I don't. Even knowing how to use it, how to install git, download the source, and build applications. That's the problem with Linux, it wastes my fucking time. It's wasting my time right now, trying to convince an arrogant douche that he's wrong. It's pointless really, so I won't bother any more.


For every good intentioned person that genuinely wants to help, there are ten more that just want to take the entire tray of free samples and keep walking. Here, not even the good intentioned people are actually helping. I see now there is little point in even giving it another week; so, the bounty is officially closed.

If any serious developer out there is interested in building a new client, get in touch with me via PM. It will be contracted work. You must reside in the continental US, be willing to sign an NDA & Non-compete, and have a realistic estimate on time/price to complete the work.

SMOS is built with old drivers on a PITA to use platform. I tried SMOS 3 times, it hashed slower, I had more problems remote viewing the machine unless I wanted just SSH, but wtf this isn't 1996 anymore. The only advantage in using linux over Win 8 was being able to use more than 5 cards, and possible the cost. For the trouble, I'll stick with 5 cards per machine (some have gotten 6), and pay the price for the O/S. It's so much less of a headache, and my control over the cards and the machine is much more refined.


I've had two people express serious interest, but in over a month nothing has come of this. Like most people, I have my own problems to deal with outside the forum, and chasing this down isn't at the top of my list. I put up some money, and went to the community for help, an nobody, not one person actually offered a damn dime to help support it. Bunch of greedy bastards. All the money that's being made using CGMiner for Scrypt, and not one of you has actually sent a donation, or even pledged $1 to a project that aims improve your software and your income. I wonder how many of you would be happy to test it out and then use it for free though?

With that said, the deadline is now 2/11. If I don't get a serious submission within a week, I'm withdrawing my bounty.

At this point, to most people, Bitcoin is to CryptoCurrency as iPad is to Tablets.  

You know, all the hysteria surrounding the rise of altcoins is a bit overblown. There was all kinds of talk about the Euro (LTC) replacing the US Dollar (BTC) when it launched. Even more talk when the value of the dollar plummeted. 2 decades later, USD is still the world's backbone reserve currency. BTC will see the same. There is so much more money in hardware supporting BTC; it's not going anywhere, even if the value relationship changes. The wonderful thing about cryptocurrencies is that you have the choice to support whichever you want. As long as more people trade in BTC, it will be worth more. The day coinbase adds LTC though... then BTC might take hit. Sticking your head in the sand and screaming that nothing will change, will not prevent it from changing. Put yourself in front of the change if you want to profit.  

I use CGMiner 3.7.2, the last version to support GPUs. I had been considering trying BFGMiner, but seeing the developer's attitude towards Scrypt, altcoins, and GPU mining, it can rot as far as I'm concerned. At least CG had the decency to admit they weren't supporting GPUs anymore and move on. Luke's attitude is to claim support for it, put zero development into it, turn it off by default, then attack others for trying to start their own program.

Development can start with existing software and build out from there, including adding OpenCL support 2.0 at a later time. There is no reason not to start today.

Everyone would love to see their favorite platform/GPU/coin supported. That said, I have yet to receive a single donation to the bounty. Lots hands out asking for things, no hands out offering help.

Maybe the issue is people are worried their donation will be lost if the bounty isn't met. To that end, if you want to donate, but want a refund if the bounty terms aren't met, PM me your donation amount and a refund address *before* you send your donation.

To be clear, you will only receive a refund on your donation if the bounty is closed without having been fulfilled.

Guys, please use a dedicated topic for OSX troubleshooting.  

Agreed. Altcoins are here to stay and are in the golden age of GPU mining. Some coins will undoubtedly last longer (LTC) than others (barrukacoin comes to mind ). Meanwhile, Luke-jr would have you believe improving his BFGMiner is the path to take, all the while removing GPU support piece by piece, further specializing his software toward ASICs. If I read his change log right, he hasn't made a single improvement to GPU mining since July, and in November removed OpenCL from compiling by default. It's okay though, because "Support will remain".

No, It's time GPUs had their own dedicated mining tool, and a development community to keep improving it.

Man the difficulty shot up fast. Just took a look at this, 32 already? Sheesh. Not worth the time. I'll stick with a coin that actually makes money for that kind of Diff. 

Maybe your cards aren't running particularly fast. I can provide SS if needed, but in my experience it slows them down. In any case, the bounty is for a GPU only tool. If mining with both is important to you, I suggest sticking with your current program.


No, I'm not a developer. I am a miner, putting up funds to improve OSS; and asking for donations to that end. I don't expect it to be accomplished for .12BTC, however, I think for 5BTC, I would just get a custom client coded for myself -- which would have to be damn good to payback that investment. Why would any individual invest that kind of coin for an OSS tool? Be realistic yourself. If the bounty fails, maybe I will do just that.


I can't tell if you feel threatened or are trying to troll me. Keep it up, I'll take the free bumps. It's also entertaining watching you argue; so No U.

Edit: Just looked up some of your posts. You're a BFGMiner developer? That's so adorable watching you try to protect it. 

Luke: You don't CPU mine on a GPU rig. Most GPU rigs use low end budget CPUs to begin with, and even tying up two cores of an I7 920 @ 4GHz is enough to negatively affect hash rates of the GPUs. I've tested this myself.

I any case, if one did have the desire to mine on his CPU while using his GPUs, you could always run a dedicated CPU mining program as well. You don't need a program that does both, because you don't CPU mine GPU coins, and you don't GPU mine CPU coins (yet). It's bee clearly demonstrated that once any significant speedup is achieved on a different flavor of hardware CPU->GPU->FPGA->ASIC it will quickly raise the network difficulty enough to make mining with lower tier hardware unprofitable.

Did you even read the quote? The quote about BFGMiner was pulled directly from Google's first search result of BFGMiner. It's not a bitcointalk thread, it's directly from BFGMiner.org, and says so in the quote. It is BFGMiner.org's own advertisement. Why would someone bother maintaining a 'Scrypt side' of BFGMiner instead of just building a pure Scrypt mining engine? Bitcoin may have the market share, but Scrypt coins are taking over. The GPU market is huge, and deserves it's own dedicated software.

I'm not going to keep arguing the point. If you want to keep supporting BFGMiner's 'scrypt' side, feel free to do so. In the mean time, I will continue to pursue my interests in getting a dedicated GPU miner written.

Shadow_Runner: As to choosing which GPU (AMD/Nvidia) to run without errors, I don't see that as a necessary requirement at this stage. It's not terribly complicated to pick the platform you want to use when initializing the miner. Further, the intended goal is to deeply specialize in AMD hardware. I suppose eventually it should just disregard other platforms and autoselect AMD, but that's not a sticking point for me at this stage.

Spiffy_1: It's made a lot of people a lot of money. Where's the giving back to the community for it? We could have ended up with crappy mine-share software like the GPU miner for CPU coins that force mines something like 12% for the author. It's one thing to want to make some money on your work, but that's freaking robbery if you ask me. If I were into those coins, I'd put up a much larger bounty for a GPU miner just to make his miner pointless to use, on principal.

Just 1% of everything made on mining with CGMiner using GPUs would buy a lot of damn programmers, and possibly keep us competitive longer. Instead, everyone hoards their coins and does little to work together for something better. I've put up a lot more in that bounty than 1% of what I've taken in since joining the Scrypt community.

What was the point in removing GPU support from CGMiner after 3.7.2?

The point is to promote GPU mining software development, with a GPU specialized mining software tool.


Why would the logical move for an individual, that uses GPUs for mining, to help support an application (BFGMiner) that bills itself as an ASIC/FPGA Miner? ASIC/FPGAs quite literally killed SHA256 GPU mining. Its a competition. Keep Scrypt GPU hash rates/watt high enough, FPGAs look much less attractive, slowing sales and development; keeping Scrypt GPU only, longer. That to me is the logical move.

My rigs are running stable enough at this point where they only time they stop is when I run a maintenance cycle. The crashing I was referring to, would not mean sick/dead devices from overclocking and/or undervolting.

Also, I'm hoping for donations toward the cause to spur development. I'll leave it open for a few days and if no one else wants to make a meaningful donation toward development, I'll close the bounty and simply keep controlling VDDC via OEM tools.

I too would like to see speed improvements, however I think it's best that those come on the foundation of a clean code base already specialized to AMD GPUs. Further, based on other topics, the real speed-ups will come from improvements to the kernel, which isn't being developed anymore either. I'm also unwilling to be the solo donor to spurring kernel developments that would give speed improvements for everyone, but I will donate for a ASIC/FPGA free codebase.

reserved

It occurs to me that I posted my bounty in the wrong forum initally, so I am cross-posting it here, in the hopes that in the right place it will get more visibility. After careful consideration I'm also altering the goals. I expect this will require a larger bounty to accomplish, so I've added more to the pot and I'm hoping for donations to that end as well.

Any donations to this address will go 100% towards the bounty, which will be awarded to the first individual to complete all the objectives. I have sent .12BTC to that address, and it can be monitored so everyone can be sure that the complete balance goes toward payout.

If you want to donate, but want a refund if the bounty terms aren't met, PM me your donation amount and a refund address *before* you send your donation.

To be clear, you will only receive a refund on your donation if the bounty is closed without having been fulfilled.

The Bounty is closed.


General goals:

Create a new miner: Scrypter by forking CGMiner 3.7.2 and narrowing code for support of GPUs only.

Minimum Requirements:

• Miner must be able to properly control VDDC, Engine, Mem, Powertune, and fans for all the unlocked R9 280x cards in a given rig.
• Enable Scrypt by default, no CLI switch should be needed
• Remove ASIC/FPGA code, drivers, and CLI options from the code base.
• All code must be open sourced, prior to claiming the bounty, so it can be inspected.
• Windows Binaries must be provided.
• Stable Code - must run minimum 24 hours without crashing

Optional: Support Scrypt-Jane.

Notes:

Some GPUs are voltage locked, and will not be covered under this task. The cards that I have: Asus R9 280x DCII & Sapphire R9 280x Toxic can be controlled via OEM tools such as Afterburner, Trixx, & GPU Tweak. Those cards must be able to be VDDC controlled via the miner. Currently CGMiner 3.7.2 can control the Engine, Mem, & Fans. Powertune can be controlled, but it doesn't seem reliable.

To claim the bounty, you must be the first to PM me a link to your complete github source AND a link to your Windows binary (hosted via Mega/dropbox or other 'no wait' download provider).  

There will be a 24-48 hour inspection and testing period to determine if the objectives have been correctly met before the bounty is considered won.

Good point. So what (if any) value does allowing a program like C.A.T. to exist, have for the Alt-coin community?

As I see it, CAT delivers lower prices to miners, higher prices to buyers, and makes for aggravating nickel & dime trade wars on Cryptsy's sell wall, all the while sucking profits out for people that do nothing and add no value to the market.

I wonder what order of magnitude Cryptsy's trade engine would speed up if BigVern disabled the API for a little while?

Maybe I'm just not seeing the same problems you guys are because I don't deal in DOGE? Rofl... Joke of a coin gets treated like a joke, what a shock?  

Cryptsy has been very smooth for me the past few days. I'm not cryptsy's shill. I am however, getting good exchanges from them, and am genuinely not having problems with lost deposits. I did make a transfer of Fastcoin once, that took like two days to show up (not so 'fast' eh?), so I stopped dealing with Fastcoin and traded in something else. I filed a ticket about it, and they fixed their deposit program, and the deposit showed up. I didn't  on the forum about it.

I literally just made two deposits into Cryptsy, which credited about 5 minutes after it was sent. I will make my trades and pull out. Smooth as butter. No need for any stress or whiny forum posts.

Edit: 12 minutes later, I made 2 deposts, 8 trades, 3 cancellations, and 1 withdrawl, incl accepting an email confirmation. It really wasn't that hard.  

Edit, Edit: For the record, it took 51 minutes for my funds to fully witdrawl from Cryptsy, slow by my standards, but I'm not filing tickets over it.

Shut the fuck up and go away. I just said it again. It's the internet, deal with it.  

How do you expect a handful of people to answer a 10,000 tickets a day over the same bullshit? You aren't dealing with Amazon. Cryptsy is a small business, and yeah, maybe he is mismanaging it, but filing ticket after ticket after ticket, whining on the forums, and trying to get wannabe politicians who want to make a name for themselves involved is stupid. Some of you are just willing to cry to anyone that will listen, even if it does nothing to help your situation. If you called the law down on me, I'd make sure your's would be the last account that gets paid out.

The more of you that pull out, the smoother the system will go for the rest of us until the upgrades are done. Works for me. In the mean time, I was smart enough not to put thousands of dollars worth of coins at a time in there, and am not stressing over any of it. I put my coins in for trade, make my trade and pull out. It's those of you with the ridiculous buy/sell walls at unrealistic prices that are hoping to extract a profit from currency trading that are nerd-raging at the moment, and it's hilarious.  

So many of you are crying about him not "talking" to you about it. He told you already. Upgrades are on the way, equipment is being shipped in, staff is being trained. You're just pretty damned impatient. Will you out on some good trades? Yes, quite possibly. Have you actually lost your deposits? Unlikely. It's a risk you took, knowing for weeks that there was problems to deposit your coins there. Now you cry when you can't get them immediately. If BTCe was so much better, why do you have your coin at Cryptsy? Right....

That's a long cable for PCIE. How many do you have and do you have any pics? Escrow would be required.