What is VarDiff?

[Haxmo]

So my question pertains to EclipseMC. I've noticed on their website that they have a server called "VarDiff". I was wonder what the difference was between this one and say "us1". Also, how I would connect to that one?

[laSeek]

The vardiff server dynamically adjusts the difficulty of the blocks you're sent based on your hashing power (as measured over a period of time).
If you have significant processing power then you can reduce load and increase your efficiency a bit using the vardiff server - you'll get >diff 1 blocks.

[Haxmo]

Thankyou. I'm currently at ~300 Mhash/s, so I guess I'll just stick with the normal server.

[laSeek]

Good plan
I think > 1Ghash and you'd see the difference

[JakeTri]

You should start seeing some differences even around ~800Mhash.

The idea is to lower the server and network load for high hashing power clients. This is achieved by using an increased difficulty work so client(miner) solve a predefined number of hashes per second.

For my case I notice that on VarDiff server I solve only 8 or 9 hashes per minute with any of my miners between 800Mhases (use ~1.35 Diff) and 4Ghases (use ~7.26 Diff).

[Shadow383]

I was under the impression that all of the eclipse servers were now VarDiff?

[JakeTri]

I switched to the VarDiff server when was first introduced as beta and did not used the "normal" ones (us1/us2/us3) but I'll start checking all of them right now and get back to you soon with my results.

[JakeTri]

You are right, all eclipse servers (us1/us2/us3/diff10 on 8337 and us3:8437) use vardiff.