python OpenCL bitcoin miner

[geebus]

Is there a guide on how to compile poclbm on windows from source? Or rather, a step-by-step guide on installing python, required packages, and then executing the source?

I can't seem to find one, but I believe I saw one before. All current windows guides just direct you to use the pre-compiled binary.

[ronaldmaustin]

Here's what I've observed with a 5970 and now a 5870 as well.  Hope it helps someone.  First and foremost, a few posts back someone noted to use the "Known Best Settings".  I added the -f5 switch and I went from about 560Mhash/sec to consistently over 600Mhash/sec on the 5970 alone. 

Next, the first post in this thread says . . .
"5970 is actually two 5870s with internal crossfire. OpenCL doesn't work with crossfire. It must be switched off. You can't switch it off on Windows. For now, 5970 can be used fully on Linux only."
I have used the 5970 for over a month on Windows 7 and get results from both cores, about 300Mhash/sec each.  So I don't know what that comment is all about.

Next, I finally was happy with my results with the 5970 and I can never leave well enough alone.  So I bought a 5870 tonight and threw that into my motherboard as well.  At first I was getting "Disabled Adapter" in Catalyst Control Center, although I could see the third GPU (now as GPU #1) in MSI Afterburner.  It did nothing and just sat there very cool.  poblcm only recognized the two 5970 cores and the CPU.  After looking at posts on Google as far back as 2008, someone said, "Plug in another monitor".  Not having another monitor, I plugged in my monitor to the 5870 instead.  Now, the 5870 GPU was the only core recognized by poblcm along with the CPU.  So I ran poblcm with a device=1 and it worked!  Then I unplugged the monitor from the 5870 and replugged it into the 5970.  Now, even though the 5870 was the disabled adapter again, poblcm was still running on the 5870.  Then I ran poblcm again on device=1 and device=0 and both of the 5970 cores were running alongside the 5870, for a total of about 875Mhash/sec.  Pretty good.  So that's just FYI for anyone running multiple 5870's, 5970's or combinations thereof.  I wish there was a way to get Catalyst Control Center, or ATI Stream, or whatever ATI driver it is to enumerate all three cores so I would not have to unplug and replug the monitor into different cards every time I want to run poblcm on the 5870 and 5970 at the same time.  I would suspect this would be a similar problem, and a similar solution, for running poblcm on  two 5970's on Windows.

[slush]

It must be switched off. You can't switch it off on Windows. For now, 5970 can be used fully on Linux only.

This is nice urban legend. With current drivers, it isn't true (this issue is probably related to some ancient drivers). I had also 5970 miner on Win and without problem.

Google as far back as 2008, someone said, "Plug in another monitor".  Not having another monitor, I plugged in my monitor to the 5870 instead.  Now, the 5870 GPU was the only core recognized by poblcm along with the CPU.  So I ran poblcm with a device=1 and it worked!

Nice trick! I failed to connect second 5970 to my Win box on the same issue. Now I'm running Linux, but it was a pain (related to non-problem setup of single 5970 on Windows).

[m0mchil]

Miner is now fixed. It found blocks on testnet. Added verification of kernel result in host.

I will highly appreciate any reports about hash speed with this version.

[hacim]

Thanks for the update on the miner, I was using the previous version of the ArtForz, and was getting approximately 332khash/sec, with your update I'm getting ~340khash/sec, so certainly an improvement!

[Cablesaurus]

I'm getting an extra 10-20khash/s on my 5970. Kudos sir.

[Mahkul]

@m0mchil: Man, you are a genius! Still not accepting donations?

I am getting extra 10khash/s on my 4850: was ~65Mhash/s, now ~75Mhash/s
On the 5850 got extra 8~- up from 292Mhash/s to 300Mhash/s

OS on both: Windows XP

[hacim]

Anyone found a block with this new kernel on this miner? I know difficulty recently went up but my last block found was on my 5870 with the previous kernel on 01/24/22 11:46... more time has elapsed than I would have expected.

[Cablesaurus]

Can anyone explain a bit on the advantages of Pool mining with Slush's pool vs Mining solo?

I'm solo mining and am still pretty new to this scene, and I've seen the details on HOW to mine in Slush's pool, but I haven't grasped the advantages if any, for my situation

[hacim]

1. Ubuntu 10.04 amd64
2. ati-driver-installer-10-10-x86.x86_64.run
3. ati-opencl-runtime_2.1_amd64.deb
4. ati-opencl-dev_2.1.deb

Where are you getting these .debs from?

[sc8nt4u]

Can anyone explain a bit on the advantages of Pool mining with Slush's pool vs Mining solo?

I'm solo mining and am still pretty new to this scene, and I've seen the details on HOW to mine in Slush's pool, but I haven't grasped the advantages if any, for my situation

What are you using to mine?

- If it's a slower machine you'd benefit a lot more by joining a mining pool as it may be weeks or months before you mint your first block. By joining a pool you'd have a steady stream of coins.

- Faster systems, you have a choice. Sometimes there is network latency issues with retrieving/sending work and/or sending timed out invalid work. When I say fast I would say at least a single 5970 to qualify.

[bitk]

Hello m0mchil.
I've been using your client a lot lately with a GTS 250 card...
Today I got a new shiny ATI card and I can't use it with your miner, even if they get recognized by software like GPU Caps Viewer! Let me explain...
I got both VGAs on my PC, ofc there's no "Crossfire" or "SLI" since they are from different vendors. The problem arises since the nvidia uses the CUDA OpenCL, the ATI uses (of course) the Stream impementation. This way, my 2 physical cards reside on 2 different cl_platform....
Now, I never touched python in my entire life... but those 2 lines looks... suspicious

Code:

platform = cl.get_platforms()[0]
devices = platform.get_devices()

I really suspect this is what's giving me problems: I can't see the ATI as listed in the devices I can choose! I could physically swap the cards, or maybe unistall and reinstal all the video drivers so that the first OpenCL platform is the ATI one, but this doesn't really look an elegant solution IMHO
Suggestions for solving my problem are welcome! EG: patches, or how to compile 2 different executables for windows.

[Cryptoman]

bitk, are you using Linux or Windows?  I was unsuccessful at getting nvidia and ATI cards working on the same machine under Linux.  I wasn't even trying to mine with the nvidia card, just use it for the GUI.  According to ArtForz, the nvidia and fglrx drivers don't play well together.

[bitk]

I'm under windows! Everything works pretty well right now if I was to be honest, since I'm using 2 different miners, one for CUDA and the poclbm for OpenCL. But having to switch to another miner was soooo sad I loved the m0mchil one

[Cablesaurus]

Can anyone tell me why this miner would be using 100% CPU for me on a Core2Duo e8400 3.69ghz processor? I think something changed in a version update in the last week or so since I started with the miner,

I'm not mining on my CPU, I'm mining with my 5970, 1 miner client ran for each core. Each client process is using 50% of the cpu... I've just seen people mention it should be using much lower CPU resources if not mining w/ it.

Using Stream 2.3

[theymos]

_{Note: Many off-topic posts about mining efficiency were moved here.}

[FairUser]

_{Note: Many off-topic posts about mining efficiency were moved here.}

Had you read it, you would know that it wasn't off topic.  Slush kept talking about the pool, but we're talking about the miner and the pool.

[dingus]

After looking at posts on Google as far back as 2008, someone said, "Plug in another monitor".  Not having another monitor, I plugged in my monitor to the 5870 instead.  Now, the 5870 GPU was the only core recognized by poblcm along with the CPU.  So I ran poblcm with a device=1 and it worked!  Then I unplugged the monitor from the 5870 and replugged it into the 5970.  Now, even though the 5870 was the disabled adapter again, poblcm was still running on the 5870.  Then I ran poblcm again on device=1 and device=0 and both of the 5970 cores were running alongside the 5870, for a total of about 875Mhash/sec.  Pretty good.  So that's just FYI for anyone running multiple 5870's, 5970's or combinations thereof.  I wish there was a way to get Catalyst Control Center, or ATI Stream, or whatever ATI driver it is to enumerate all three cores so I would not have to unplug and replug the monitor into different cards every time I want to run poblcm on the 5870 and 5970 at the same time.  I would suspect this would be a similar problem, and a similar solution, for running poblcm on  two 5970's on Windows.

I can confirm this trick works on my 5970 + 5770 setup. First start 2 poblcm instances for the 5970, then unplug monitor, plug into 5770, start instance of poblcm. 5970 + 5770 goodness!

~800000 k/hash/s

[geebus]

Where is the guide for compiling (not just running from executable) poclbm on Windows? Last time I needed to do it on a Windows box was when the 2011-11-26 version was out, but now the only guide I can seem to find for windows is the "You only need this if you cant RTFM" py2exe guide...

What software needs to be installed?
What addons for Python?
What dependencies for PyOpenCL?
Versions?

Presently, I followed the install guide for PyOpenCL (updating for newer versions) and installed json-rpc from the SVN, but every time I try to run 'python poclbm.py' with any flags, it crashes.

Using:
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Stream 2.3 (also tried with 2.1 and 2.2)
Catalyst 11.1 (also tried with 10.11 and 10.12)
Python 2.6.6 (32-bit)
Boost 1.44
MSVC 2008 (9.0)
Numpy 1.5.1
SciPy 0.8.0
SetupTools 0.6c11

[m0mchil]

Fixed issue with lost results due to single output per kernel run (thanks OneFixt, ArtForz).