Need help getting started with GPU mining

[Draneth]

I'm looking for some help getting started mining with my GPU.

I'm entirely new to the set-up and running of such a system, so if someone could give me some guidance, I'd appreciate it.

My PC is a Windows 7 64 bit, with an Nvidia GeForce460 and a Radeon X800GTO.  I use it primarily for gaming, so I'd like to constantly mine with the older card, while using the GeForce only when the computer is not in use.

[[Tycho]]

I'm looking for some help getting started mining with my GPU.

I'm entirely new to the set-up and running of such a system, so if someone could give me some guidance, I'd appreciate it.

My PC is a Windows 7 64 bit, with an Nvidia GeForce460 and a Radeon X800GTO.  I use it primarily for gaming, so I'd like to constantly mine with the older card, while using the GeForce only when the computer is not in use.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
Here you can see what results to expect with different cards. nVidia is inferior for mining.

If you want to mine with your nVidia card using CUDA, try this miner: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2444.0
You may join a pool, like my http://deepbit.net and start mining :)

[BitLex]

My PC is a Windows 7 64 bit, with an Nvidia GeForce460 and a Radeon X800GTO

Radeons that old don't have openCL support, so they won't work, you'll need at least a HD4xxx or higher.

for your GTX460 you only need to install the CUDAToolkit (and recent drivers of course, but i bet you already have those installed).
you can then use any of the available gpu-miners, be it OpenCL, like poclbm, or Diablos javaminer, or CUDA, like the one from puddinpop.
if you don't want to fiddle with the commandline, there's also a GUI-miner, that (afaik) supports poclbm and puddinpops.

[Draneth]

There really should be at least a stick thread on how to set up mining with a GPU.  Your advice and links really helped me get started.

I couldn't get any of the miners you suggested up and running (started up, but returned "could not retrieve work from RPC server"), so I went with a guiminer instead, and am now contributing to Deepbit at ~50 Mhash/s.

Thanks for the assistance.

[slurch]

I wrote this if anyone finds it helpful...managed to get a few friends up and running with it:

How to Mine Bitcoins with your GPU in a Pool

[keybaud]

Be careful, as my HD4870 was losing me money when it mining at 90 MH/s and BTC were $0.8. The electric costs of running the PC were higher than the revenue generated by mining, so it was actually cheaper to just buy the BTC....

[Miner-TE]

Is that 90Mh/s looking better now that BTC is at $1.90 (ndrix) and appears to be skyrocketing?   

[slurch]

Eh...I pay like 4.8 cents a kW...it's not bad. People who pay upwards of 10-12 cents a kW should probably check the Mining Hardware Comparison link above for power consumption.