python OpenCL bitcoin miner

[LobsterMan]

My hash rate is actually somewhat higher with the new version, I went from about 50mhash/s per gtx275 to around 58mhash/s, but my desktop is somewhat less responsive with the miners running now where it was not before

[m0mchil]

@LobsterMan, the default '-f' is 30 now, use '-f 60' (previous default) or more if it hogs your desktop

[Cablesaurus]

30Mhash/s slower after the update.

HD6950 went from 226M to 196M.

No obvious change for me ( 5850 ), still getting between 249M - 251M.

No change for me either, getting the exact same, no slowdown.

[FairUser]

I'm still seeing several invalid stale hashes being submitted.

05/02/2011 16:12, 3725321b, accepted
05/02/2011 16:13, b794eb73, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 16:13, 898ceca7, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 16:13, bde1a5f3, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 16:14, 0a07cf1a, accepted

Any idea as to why?

[slush]

I'm still seeing several invalid stale hashes being submitted.
Any idea as to why?

Maybe because they are really stale? http://blockexplorer.com/block/00000000000018cf119be227dcf0d7403b20dc9b8fa0c3d6bc9022c65baf9a39

[FairUser]

Literally just got these

05/02/2011 22:00, 2a07e960, accepted
05/02/2011 22:00, fe7439af, accepted
05/02/2011 22:01, 2a07e960, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, fe7439af, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, 2a07e960, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, fe7439af, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, 2a07e960, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, fe7439af, invalid or stale

This is on a stock miner....no mods of any kind.
6 getworks were requested, and the answer found were repeats.

[FairUser]

I'm still seeing several invalid stale hashes being submitted.
Any idea as to why?

Maybe because they are really stale? http://blockexplorer.com/block/00000000000018cf119be227dcf0d7403b20dc9b8fa0c3d6bc9022c65baf9a39

So getworks are now going stale even faster....thanks for clarifying.

[m0mchil]

Literally just got these

05/02/2011 22:00, 2a07e960, accepted
05/02/2011 22:00, fe7439af, accepted
05/02/2011 22:01, 2a07e960, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, fe7439af, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, 2a07e960, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, fe7439af, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, 2a07e960, invalid or stale
05/02/2011 22:01, fe7439af, invalid or stale

This is on a stock miner....no mods of any kind.
6 getworks were requested, and the answer found were repeats.

There are two ways to get something like this - first one is using ask rate of more than ~12 seconds with an overclocked 5870 (stock max -a is 10 seconds). Other one is network problems triggering resubmission of results - this mechanism is removed since last version. Since you said it happened with stock miner I vote for the latter. 

[Quantumboredom]

Hi. I'm trying to get this to work, and want to check it with the "testnet" I've heard about.

What I've done:
Followed the guide. After starting bitcon.exe -server and the .bat-file as described I get a cmd window with the hash speed showing.
I then copied the bitcoin.conf to %appdata%/bitcoin/testnet, ran bitcoin.exe -server -testnet and then launced the .bat-file as before. Again the hash speed is showing in a cmd-window, but after about 30 minutes with ~280000 khash/s I've still not gotten any messages about completed blocks. My impression was that that should happen very quicly on the testnet. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any help.

[Cryptoman]

The last time I looked, the testnet difficulty factor was around 350.  Using that number as a guide, 280 Mhash/s should yield a block on average every 1.5 hours.

[Quantumboredom]

Aye a couple showed up when I let it run for a while longer, thanks

Another question, it's ok to close poclbm.exe and bitcoin, correct? It isn't necessary to keep them running non-stop untill a block is solved?

[Cryptoman]

Both m0mchil's python program and bitcoind must be running continuously for mining to take place.  I have no idea how to run or monitor detached processes on Windows, but my guess is that you have to keep the command windows open.  Maybe someone with Windows experience will chime in here.

[Quantumboredom]

I think you misunderstood my question. I do keep both bitcoin.exe and poclbm.exe running at the same time, what I'm wondering is what happens if I restart the programs, or reboot my computer. Will I start again from scratch or does the mining continue where it left off?

[Cryptoman]

Finding a correct hash is a completely random event, and the probability depends only on the hash rate and the total amount of time dedicated to mining.  You lose a little time having to reconnect to the network and retrieve the latest transactions, but it's pretty insignificant.  A 280 Mhash/s rig turned on for 12 hours a day should perform the same as a 140 Mhash/s rig running 24 hours a day.

[BitLex]

Will I start again from scratch or does the mining continue where it left off?

Yes and yes.  
it's not that you're making any "progress" that could be lost,
you start from scratch with any single hash, like drawing lottery-tickets a few thousand/million times a second,
you either get a winning-ticket, or a loser. won't help you to keep the loser in your pocket.

[Quantumboredom]

Ok I understand, thanks for the help Cryptoman and BitLex

[ribuck]

OpenCL HOWTO FOR FEDORA 14 LINUX

Here are some notes which may be useful to anyone who wishes to mine for bitcoins on Fedora 14 Linux. It's simpler than the instructions I posted for Fedora 12, because Bitcoin now supports the 'getwork' call and therefore doesn't need to be recompiled.

===

Check your software versions, and upgrade as necessary. The gcc compiler needs to be 4.x (for PyOpenCL), and Python needs to be 2.4 or newer (again, for PyOpenCL), but not Python 3.x.

Code:

$ gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 4.5.1 20100924 (Red Hat 4.5.1-4)

$ python --version
Python 2.7

You need to have either the full kernel source, or the kernel headers (because the ATI GPU driver is installed by compiling a kernel module). You also need the Python headers.

Code:

$ rpm -q kernel-devel
kernel-devel-2.6.35.10-74.fc14.x86_64

$ rpm -q python-devel
python-devel-2.7-8.fc14.1.x86_64

===

Update your display driver.

I followed the instructions from here:
http://gofedora.com/how-to-install-ati-catalyst-fglrx-98-drivers-fedora-11/
except that I used the version 11.1 11.2 of the ATI Catalyst Display Driver for Linux x86 from here:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.42&lang=English

Supposedly some of the installation steps are no longer needed with version 11.1, but I wasn't completely certain which ones, so I did them all anyway.

===

Get the ATI Stream SDK v2.1 (NOT any later version, according to brocktice), from here: http://developer.amd.com/gpu/ATIStreamSDK/pages/ATIStreamSDK-Archive.aspx

You need two downloads from that page: the Linux SDK (32-bit or 64-bit according to your version of Linux), plus icd-registration.tgz

Untar the SDK anywhere convenient. Add these lines to your .bash_profile file (in your login directory):

Code:

export ATISTREAMSDKSAMPLESROOT=...<some path>.../ati-stream-sdk-v2.1-lnx64
export ATISTREAMSDKROOT=...<some path>.../ati-stream-sdk-v2.1-lnx64
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ATISTREAMSDKROOT/lib/x86_64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

These pathnames will vary slightly if you have a 32-bit Fedora installation.

Move icd-registration.tgz into your root directory and (as root) untar it from there. It puts some essential config files into /etc.

If you like, follow the documentation that is included in the SDK to compile the examples. Execute ati-stream-sdk-v2.1-lnx64/samples/opencl/bin/x86_64/CLInfo to check that things are working and that your GPU card is detected.

===

Install the Python OpenCL module (PyOpenCL). Broadly, follow the instructions here:
http://wiki.tiker.net/PyOpenCL/Installation/Linux

However, in step 2 I couldn't install the Numpy dependency this way. Instead I ran "System | Administration | Add/Remove Software", then searched for numpy and installed it.

In step 3, the OpenCL headers and libraries weren't found, so I had to use the longer configure.py example and provide explicit paths.

I don't think the "Boost C++" libraries are required for this version of PyOpenCL.

===

Install the JSON-RPC module for Python. This was straightforward using the instructions here:
http://json-rpc.org/wiki/python-json-rpc

===

Go to m0mchil's Git repository:
https://github.com/m0mchil/poclbm

Click the "Download" button. Download and unpack these files anywhere convenient. Change poclbm.py to executable and check that it's working:

Code:

chmod 744 poclbm.py
./poclbm.py --help

===

If you don't already have a file bitcoin.conf in your ~/.bitcoin directory, create one and put a username and password in it:

Code:

rpcuser=yourusername
rpcpassword=yourpassword

Go back to the bitcoin/bin/64 directory and start bitcoin in rpc server mode:

Code:

./bitcoin -server &

Go to the directory where you built poclbm.py and run it:

Code:

./poclbm.py --user=yourusername --pass=yourpassword

It will tell you which devices it can see. Choose the one that's not your CPU, and add that one to the command line with the "-d" switch:

Code:

./poclbm.py --user=yourusername --pass=yourpassword -d1

Watch the khash/s figures with sweet delight, and enjoy the few moments before the roar of your GPU fan starts up.

Many thanks to m0mchil and the many others who have offered code or helpful tips.

(PS: If you upgrade your kernel, the ATI driver might hang on startup. If this happens, boot into runlevel 3, delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf , reboot and reinstall the ATI driver.)

[Cablesaurus]

What is the -askrate flag doing? How does it help if set to something non-default? thanks for any input.

[TheKoziTwo]

I just get 3500 khash/s

--device=0 -f 5 -v -w 128 (tried different combinations like f 30 and w 256 etc)

What am I doing wrong?

[Cryptoman]

I just get 3500 khash/s

--device=0 -f 5 -v -w 128 (tried different combinations like f 30 and w 256 etc)

What am I doing wrong?

Device 0 is your CPU, most likely.  Try device=1 or start the miner with no options and it will list the devices.