BitMinter client 1.3.0beta3 is out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=31163.msg1078163#msg1078163
Please help test and let's get v1.3.0 out.

BitMinter client v1.3.0beta3 is ready for testing.

News since beta2:

• Improve sorting order of FPGAs ("natural" order, usb2 before usb19)
• Re-enabled comm port interval scanning (FPGA section of config)
    Can be used to automatically pick up FPGAs when plugged in
• Count X accepted/rejected when the work difficulty was X (X is rounded down)
• Fixed bug that could cause "probe all ports" to stop working and
    report "no serial ports found"
• Changed regular poll interval to 20 ms (was 10) for BFL default config
    Saves 5-10% CPU usage on testsystem with 2 BFL minirigs, no performance loss
• Changed hammering poll interval to 5 ms (was 1) for BFL default config
    Saves 10-15% CPU usage on testsystem with 2 BFL minirigs, < 0.1% perf. loss
• Bugfix: stopping an FPGA could cause another FPGA to timeout and stop too
• Hopefully works on OpenBSD and FreeBSD as well now. FPGA only, untested.

Please check it out:


I would like to get 1.3.0 out soon, so please help test this beta. I'm particularly interested in performance differences for BFL mining compared to 1.2.0 (the current stable version) and with different poll intervals. Also of course any bugs you find and whether it runs ok on raspberry pi or PC with openbsd or freebsd, if you are able to test on any of those.

If you know a proportional pool's current round is long, then you know payout will be very bad, so avoid it.

If you know a proportional pool's current round just started, there's a chance of very high payout, so give it a try, but leave before the round gets too long.

This is why proportional pools try to hide their round information.

This is sometimes caused by an anti virus trying to inspect the file transfer and accidentally breaking it. Specifically AVG antivirus will do this.

Also it can be caused by a java bug after you upgrade from java 6 to java 7. You will have to clear the java temporary files to fix it. You find this in the java control panel. On Windows you can find the java control panel inside the windows control panel. Or you can open it with "javaws -viewer" from the command line on any operating system.

The client can also be started from the command line with "javaws http://bitminter.com/client/bitminter.jnlp"

Look at the hardware comparison linked to above. Try and find an AMD card that gives you a good hash rate for your money.

But also look at the BFL BitForce SC devices that are coming. You may want to think about buying one of those instead, or buy the graphics card mostly for mining, as it's hard to tell how much it will mine before ASICs make it too slow to be worthwhile.

Of course it still makes sense to buy a GPU if you will game on it, and use it for mining for as long as it is profitable. But it's good to be aware that the future of GPU mining is now very uncertain.

Everyone using cgminer or BFGminer, please make sure you are running the latest version. A bug was fixed that could cause the miner to flood the server with getwork requests. It may have been the issue we had a couple weeks back.

Everyone using cgminer or BFGminer, please make sure you are running the latest version. A bug was fixed that could cause the miner to flood the server with getwork requests. It may have been the issue we had a couple weeks back.

I shut them off while I'm on the other side of the globe. They are coming up again soon.

Any bitminters at Def Con?

How can round length and luck differ? Having short rounds = being lucky.

Any bitcoiners around at Def Con right now?

I'm at the Chillout Cafe. I have a Hak5 cap on the table next to my lap top, should make me easy to spot.

Still on my TODO list, this. You can see some such info in your browser if you are logged in. But this requires logging into the website. There will be an API to use to get this info instead, hopefully soon.


Winning!

It's not a problem with 500 GH/s. The pool has been running 800 GH/s without issues.

Lately something strange seem to happen once in a while, even though nothing changed server-side. Sometimes some connections get stuck/slow and some miners then open a lot of connections. I'm trying to find out what the issue is so I can fix it, or at least block misbehaving miner programs from making the server unusable for others. But while I'm at Black Hat and Def Con I'll probably only have time to watch the server when I can and restart the mining backend if I start to see issues. This is the top priority issue I'll be working on though.

Yep, that's among the things on the top of my list after Black Hat and Def Con are over.


Yes, as soon as BFL has info on their new protocol available (for communicating with the devices) I'll start implementing it. In the mean time I am working on other changes to the server and client to make them work better with such high hash rates as you will see with ASICs.


Some pools have merged mining of namecoins and some don't. Currently I believe they add about 0.5% to your income if you sell them for bitcoins. After the reward halving on the bitcoin chain the namecoins might be a 1% profit boost. But that depends of course on how the namecoin/bitcoin exchange rate will go.

Sorry the pool was down so long. I've been on a long trip while this was happening. Just got to my hotel room in Las Vegas now. Looks like someone overloaded the pool and the backend had to be restarted to recover properly.

Will look into why it wasn't able to recover by itself and yes, failover pools are high on the TODO-list for the client. I have quite a bit of time off soon, should be able to implement some new things. Won't have time for that while I'm at Black Hat and Def Con though.

Right now I must sleep. That was one long trip.

I'll be arriving in Vegas on the 18th and leaving on the 30th. Maybe I'll see some of you guys there.

I'd just like to add that BitMinter pays out namecoins and transaction fees. Namecoins are about 0.5% extra income at the moment, judging by today's exchange rate. Transaction fees are about 0.1% to 0.4% extra income right now, from the looks of the blockchain.info graph. Transaction fees are on the rise and coin generation will soon be halved. Soon you could be looking at "zero fee PPS" actually meaning 2% or higher fees, assuming you don't get namecoins.

100% PPS listed above is not in fact 100%. "Zero fee" isn't always zero fee.

Try BitMinter. There's no fee, you can adjust the donation percentage as you please.

And for beginners I'd argue it's the most user-friendly pool/miner to get started on. So check it out.

If only I got such great offers every day

Congrats on the minirigs WhitePhantom!


This was a feature in an earlier beta version. But the serial port library I was using would leak a file descriptor/handle every time it scanned a serial port that was already in use by another program. After running for a while the program would run out of file descriptors.

The new beta is using a different library. I will check whether it is safe to re-enable periodic scanning.


Those rigs kick ass!