Generating Bitcoins with your video card (OpenCL/CUDA)

[omegadraconis]

Just wanted to send another update here that the client is running just fine for the most part of about 14hrs or so now. I had to stop it once to add a fan to my gpu because it was overheating, Otherwise generation is stable.

Also something that I noticed, when I use the -server and -daemon switch the client exits after the command has been sent. For example when I do a getinfo, the info box comes up but, after that the client closes, no crash just exit. The log shows the getdata command and then some operations afterwards, so it doesn't seem like it's bailing out right at the command being sent. Anyone else having this issue?

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[Ground Loop]

I set up a new wallet for this client.  Starting balance is zero, so it can only be a net win regardless of what the code wants to do.

That said, my passively-cooled Zotac GT240 is not up to the task.  After five minutes, the generation rate has dropped down to nearly nothing.  I suspect the card has throttled itself down as it bakes under the passive heatsink.  Hmm.

[jgarzik]

I set up a new wallet for this client.  Starting balance is zero, so it can only be a net win regardless of what the code wants to do.

Stealing your BTC isn't the only thing a closed-source client might do.  Make sure you don't have any personal information stored on the computer running the client, no bank account numbers etc.

And monitor the network communication to make sure it only communicates with other bitcoin P2P clients, and not other botnets as well.  It would be too easy to hide a key-generation botnet client inside something appearing to be a bitcoin client.

[MoonShadow]

I set up a new wallet for this client.  Starting balance is zero, so it can only be a net win regardless of what the code wants to do.

Stealing your BTC isn't the only thing a closed-source client might do.  Make sure you don't have any personal information stored on the computer running the client, no bank account numbers etc.

And monitor the network communication to make sure it only communicates with other bitcoin P2P clients, and not other botnets as well.  It would be too easy to hide a key-generation botnet client inside something appearing to be a bitcoin client.

Wow, that's paranoid, and rude.  Dude, we are not talking about some shady third party, you can ask the programmer the how and why right here.  Nor do you have to trust him or use his code.  You could do it, and open source it if you like, if you have the skills.  For the time being, however, the code belongs to he who wrote it, and he can dictate the conditions.  The client is open, but for now, the gpu code is not.  If you want to help to make it so, someone could make an offer of a number; after which the code is open sourced by the author, whether that number comes from the gpu client or from regular donations.

How about 50K bitcoins from all sources or one year after the release date, whichever comes first?

[BitLex]

paranoid?
who do you tell?
those that want to stay completely anonymous, those using Tor and similar stuffs to hide theyr identities? 
those are paranoid anyway and they know it.

believe it or not, in a closed source client anything might be possible.

i already made the mistake to trust someone i know nothing about and lost a few coins,
i don't think it's paranoid to be sceptical.


i'm with mizery and in for another donation on a first open source cuda-client.

[neptop]

Windows 7 x64
HD4650
ATI stream SDK has been installed for a while now to play a bit.

I'd also donate for the source code.

[MoonShadow]

believe it or not, in a closed source client anything might be possible.

i already made the mistake to trust someone i know nothing about and lost a few coins,
i don't think it's paranoid to be sceptical.

I am aware that a closed application could do just about anything.  But there are sound reasons for preferring anonimity beyond paranoia.  This list is pretty anonymous anyway, since we really don't know who each other are, but you can still converse with the author.  If you don't trust his code, don't use it.  Collective bounties for opening code is a valid method.  I would wager that there are a number of ways that the total amount sent to the author's encoded address could be tallied.  Just tracking the transfers to that address, either donations or generation commissions, can be seen within the blockchain by anyone willing to write a program to do so.  If he agrees to a price, and refuses to comply, then you can be dick.

[BitLex]

If you don't trust his code, don't use it.

i didn't say anything else, did i? 
i'm not asking people to hack into and modify puddin's client,
i'm not even asking puddin to open his code, it's his choice alone what he wants to release,
just offering some coins to another programmer, that might be willing to show us the code to proof it does what it's supposed to.

I would wager that there are a number of ways that the total amount sent to the author's encoded address could be tallied.  Just tracking the transfers to that address, either donations or generation commissions, can be seen within the blockchain by anyone willing to write a program to do so.  If he agrees to a price, and refuses to comply, then you can be dick.

do whatever you want, track coins, workaround the auto-send somehow (nothing's easier than that), or even hack/modify the client to your needs, if your able, willing and bored enough to, that again is your choice.


not a goal of mine to be dick (yuck) at all,
i'd just like to use a cuda-client cuz my gfx-card is kinda bored most of the time and could do ~10times the work, my cpu is able to do,
so if anyone releases one, i'm willing to donate some of my hard earned, bought and generated coins.

[GeorgeH]

Anyone have this running on windows?

[omegadraconis]

Anyone have this running on windows?

The client posted by puddinpop is a windows client. Probably at this point could use it's own thread and perhaps a mod should split the topic at the point that puddinpop posted the client to avoid further confusion. I have been running the client on windows 7 64bit for a few days on and off.

I am currently doing some testing on the client on a closed network of clients. Thus far the client has not done anything outside of generate coins and send some to the authors address. Netstat does not show any extra ports being listened to. I am fairly confident that the client is not doing anything out of the norm for a bitclient (i.e. virus, malware, etc.) and it does pass online anti-virus tests. The client may have a bug that I am trying to verify tonight. I don't want to cause a stir until I am sure and would like very much for some one else verify they are getting the same results as me. I will post more once or if I see the client do the same thing again as I deleted the data files and started over clean. I will know in about another 75blocks (sometime in the middle of the night). In the mean time has anyone else linked a client with this one and let the run from block 0 on a closed test network?

[Update] OK no bug here just a matter of the way the client works. Everything a block is generated the "debit" is incremented by 5btc. This debit is sent right then if coins are available. What I was seeing on my test network was that clocks were being generated and taking a long time to mature so that once I have 50btcs generated and matured they would all be debited out of the client because the blocks had already been generated. I would say my test of the client makes me trust it with a fair level of confidence.

[Immanuel]

I use a 9500GT and use Debian 5.0 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit. I am very interested in this. Thanks!

[Cdecker]

This is probably one of the best reasons we should switch the main client to a more restrictive license, that wouldn't allow to redistribute a closed source client based on the original client.

Anyway am I the only one who's wondering if the reported performance is actually what is going on under the hood? It doesn't take a lot of effort to just multiply the real number of khash/s by a constant factor, which would urge people to use the modified client which in turn sends part of the coins to the author, without providing actually any benefits?

Has anyone verfied the odds of generating coins with the theoretical number [1]?

[1] http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

[omegadraconis]

This is probably one of the best reasons we should switch the main client to a more restrictive license, that wouldn't allow to redistribute a closed source client based on the original client.

Anyway am I the only one who's wondering if the reported performance is actually what is going on under the hood? It doesn't take a lot of effort to just multiply the real number of khash/s by a constant factor, which would urge people to use the modified client which in turn sends part of the coins to the author, without providing actually any benefits?

Has anyone verfied the odds of generating coins with the theoretical number [1]?

[1] http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

In my closed test network experiment with the client the speeds did seem to be on par with what should have been seen. The difficulty was 1 and I khashed @ a rate of ~28500KHPS. I found that I should be seeing a block roughly 7 minutes with a 95% probability. I was seeing them within this time frame regularly. It seems to me to be working but, I have not gotten to put it to much use on the public network as of yet. I am going to start running it full tilt on the public network now to see what happens.

[puddinpop]

Here's a build with the latest svn, 149.

See my signature for the latest download.

[true]

Fuck your ransomware, I'll work on cracking this.

[aceat64]

Fuck your ransomware, I'll work on cracking this.

That's not really helpful to anyone, a more productive use of your time is to work on an opensource CUDA/OpenCL client. Assuming you have the required programming expertise, which I don't.

[true]

Fuck your ransomware, I'll work on cracking this.

That's not really helpful to anyone, a more productive use of your time is to work on an opensource CUDA/OpenCL client. Assuming you have the required programming expertise, which I don't.

It's helpful to at least two people, and considering it's already done, the time/payoff seems pretty high to me. Seemed to be a pretty productive use of my time.

[torservers]

For some reason, the CUDA client doesn't use my GPU (Win7 64bit, 8800GT). I do like that it shows khashes/s though.

[LZ]

With -gpu option?

[torservers]

I have reinstalled the NVIDIA driver and now it works. Thanks. Would be nice to have it use CPU cores and GPU.