The official MacMiner thread [BTC/LTC-CPU/GPU/FPGA/ASIC]

[Anonymailer]

Oh yes I remember now, I'm afraid CG Miner isn't compiled with scrypt, so cpu is actually the only one that'll work with it on the 10.7 version, there's something else for v1.0.3! Sorry about that.

The xt1900 is just too old and won't work with the mining software, I don't know much about flashing -- you can run newer ATI cards on a Mac (10.8 again) without even bothering now!

Mining while using the GPU for video editing will slow you down. I turn it off if I'm using Apple Motion, but that's on a machine with only one GPU (another 5770) so I can't say whether Final Cut will use both GPUs or just the one the monitor is connected to/the one in the x16 slot. That said, depending on your mining (low intensity specifically) settings it might not affect you too much as the mining does scale back so the GPU can process for other things.

For the PCI setup that pops up you'll want to keep the 5770 in the x16 slot and get the xt1900 in the x8 slot for the best performance on both.

[emunebtk]

Oh yes I remember now, I'm afraid CG Miner isn't compiled with scrypt, so cpu is actually the only one that'll work with it on the 10.7 version, there's something else for v1.0.3! Sorry about that.

Its all good will just go back to working with GUIminer in the meantime for LTCmining on the GPU until we can get it all working. Would love to update to 10.8 but sadly I am one of the kids on a 1,1, Mac Pro who doesnt have the hardware to make it happen. I was reading I can do a work around with chameleon? If i really wanted to but assuming that would cause more of a mess then it is worth. Really waiting for the new Pro's to come out I think early next year and that just scoop up one of those bad boys. For now though stuck with Lion.

The xt1900 is just too old and won't work with the mining software, I don't know much about flashing -- you can run newer ATI cards on a Mac (10.8 again) without even bothering now!

Mining while using the GPU for video editing will slow you down. I turn it off if I'm using Apple Motion, but that's on a machine with only one GPU (another 5770) so I can't say whether Final Cut will use both GPUs or just the one the monitor is connected to/the one in the x16 slot. That said, depending on your mining (low intensity specifically) settings it might not affect you too much as the mining does scale back so the GPU can process for other things.

For the PCI setup that pops up you'll want to keep the 5770 in the x16 slot and get the xt1900 in the x8 slot for the best performance on both.

Definitely I do a turn off all mining when doing any editing and really keep it on for times when just in a browser or at night when sleeping and the machine isnt rendering. Although when rendering/formatting files I guess that would just be CPU intensive right? So could ideally keep the GPU on, CPU off to not do any crazy overpowerring. In the end I will just have to play with the 1900 and end up probably making it a scrap GPU. Which brings me to my next thought..I think i will just go buy a 7950 or 7970 this week and popit in the PC miner i have right now with a NVIDIA GT250 chugging away at slow speeds one hash at a time. Or pop a new 7950 into the mac and pull the 5770 out of here into the pc if they are interchangeable like that since the mac is the fastest machine at this time. So many options and appreciate your time and help in figuring it all out. If you need a tester for any new macminer updates just let me know

[Anonymailer]

mm, I have a 1,1 around as well but work on a 2012 model… But I only really mine BTC and I didn't recompile for the binary in the 10.7 version… should be fixed in the next week. I think Tim Cook promised a Mac Pro 'replacement' later this year - not really sure what to expect! And they're not allowed to sell the Mac Pro in Europe anymore due to silly EU rules about the encasing for fans so I'm expecting whatever it is sooner rather than later - possibly the 'made in America' line they're working on.

I wouldn't personally use a workaround to install 10.8 on the 1,1 - I can't remember why but I looked it up when I was thinking about it but was put off by the downsides…

If you've just set something big exporting/rendering then yeah it'll be the CPU but if you're editing clips etc. the GPU is going to be working too… though a lot more in Motion than Final Cut and I use the former a lot more than the latter so I'm not entirely sure how much of a difference you'd notice.

If you're thinking of a new GPU I'd say 2 things - make sure it's one a lot of people have flashed for Mac, and only bother if you'll benefit from the upgrade, BFL are finally starting to ship ASICs a little quicker and the difficulty is going to keep rising quickly so it's going to be increasingly hard to get a decent return from a GPU…

Thanks for offering to test out, I may end up posting a 10.7 beta for you. Right now I've just been working on the pool, it's running more stably now but I think I should probably double the RAM of the server in anticipation of wider use. Back to work on the app tomorrow.

The pool's also accessible now at pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332 user a BTC address password anything - thanks to everyone who's been testing it!
pool stats are up here http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332/static/

[emunebtk]

mm, I have a 1,1 around as well but work on a 2012 model… But I only really mine BTC and I didn't recompile for the binary in the 10.7 version… should be fixed in the next week. I think Tim Cook promised a Mac Pro 'replacement' later this year - not really sure what to expect! And they're not allowed to sell the Mac Pro in Europe anymore due to silly EU rules about the encasing for fans so I'm expecting whatever it is sooner rather than later - possibly the 'made in America' line they're working on.

yep I think we are all waiting to see what is going to happen so might as well just be patient a bit longer to see what gets released. *keeps fingers crossed*

I wouldn't personally use a workaround to install 10.8 on the 1,1 - I can't remember why but I looked it up when I was thinking about it but was put off by the downsides…
If you've just set something big exporting/rendering then yeah it'll be the CPU but if you're editing clips etc. the GPU is going to be working too… though a lot more in Motion than Final Cut and I use the former a lot more than the latter so I'm not entirely sure how much of a difference you'd notice. 

Was thinking the same exact thing on CPU/GPU and system install. Nice to have another person back my theory to help divide my mining time on either or. From my experience usually when it comes to hacking system software especially on osx it all starts to go a little haywire at some point. Keeping in as is until FCPX stops supporting lion.

If you're thinking of a new GPU I'd say 2 things - make sure it's one a lot of people have flashed for Mac, and only bother if you'll benefit from the upgrade, BFL are finally starting to ship ASICs a little quicker and the difficulty is going to keep rising quickly so it's going to be increasingly hard to get a decent return from a GPU…

Really trying to mine Litecoin going forward so hopefully all us GPU and CPU kids will have a bit longer before some monster comes out to put us out of business. If i add just 1 x high powered 7970 or something of the like it will at least give me some juice to stay in the game a bit while BTC miners start to switch to LTC and other alt coins. just a theory and working out all the details...and happy to test out anything you got to throw at me..well that works with  10.7 anyways Thanks again for the help!!

[Anonymailer]

Cool, I'll send you a new version for 10.7 later today or tomorrow, with scrypt enabled and without having to use the installer anymore!

[LaserHorse]

I've got an old Mac Pro 1,1 as well - would be great to get it mining LTC.
Interested to see how it goes for emunebtk.

[Anonymailer]

I've got an old Mac Pro 1,1 as well - would be great to get it mining LTC.
Interested to see how it goes for emunebtk.

Aww, you're making me wish I was focusing on the 10.7 update before the 10.8 update - there's a big one coming this weekend. Gonna get it self contained again (goodbye installer) and allow auto-configuration with pools and a continuation of the GUI improvement. But I might post a new CGMiner for you in the meantime so you can swap it out and get scrypt mining.

[LaserHorse]

Aww, you're making me wish I was focusing on the 10.7 update before the 10.8 update - there's a big one coming this weekend. Gonna get it self contained again (goodbye installer) and allow auto-configuration with pools and a continuation of the GUI improvement. But I might post a new CGMiner for you in the meantime so you can swap it out and get scrypt mining.

Oh no - I think the 10.8 would be much more useful to users in general, but that's very considerate of you

The update sounds great - thanks so much for your hard work on this.  I'll be sure to send you a donation when I have the coin.
One thing that would be nice in the UI would be a larger options field, or perhaps have it resize in relation to the window width.
I do have experience w/ Xcode but only for iOS development - does the project use Interface Builder for the UI?  just curious.

[Anonymailer]

It's no problem, I'm geeky enough to like what I'm doing and I'm just happy I finally found a way to help bitcoin grow I can do. I don't really have a business head! And both the BTC businesses I tried had very few orders. BitBacco was kinda fun but way slower than I'd hoped, like one order a month usually for something small. Probably due to my high standards in product selection and wanting to obey the law hence aiming at too high a market. I'm sure you can get super cheap 'who gives a damn what distribution of Tobacco this actually is and what cocktail of ~500 chemical additives that wouldn't be allowed in your food' brand cigarettes without even having to hope through customs on the Silk Road.

All that aside, I also get to learn on the job, add to my portfolio and I've had two generous donations and one paid feature request and if I somehow manage to keep that much coming in it'll actually pay off the dedicated server for a pool I just got and the boost on the fabulouspanda.co.uk hosting package from '2012 platinum linux' to '2013 platinum linux' which costs a little more but ups the bandwidth 2.5x so I can justify keeping the guiminer.app update that started all this online (aww, nostalgia for… 2 months ago) despite the barrage of downloads from windows machines on different IPs… I have no idea what that's about.

I'm ripping the options field out and putting in an options view with pretty much everything adjustable and the option to enter your options manually. I'm really looking forward to releasing this weekend, it's finally starting to look really polished and I think I'll have smoothed over most if not all of the unwanted behaviours (like needing to use -T in cgminer in the 10.7 version or miners wanting/not wanting http://). To be honest the fact that someone else, years after no mac native clients have existed and a couple of months after I created one has a private beta going is spurring me to get the app perfect quicker than I would otherwise. I have to take a little schadenfreude from the fact that his thread only contains reports of it not working, but the impartial and competitive aspects of me say yay competition

I started in iOS development too, funnily enough I hated it when I was being paid to make stuff I wasn't interested in but I actually like working on this project! It does use interface builder - it really has come on leaps and bounds lately. The project is hosted on github here:
https://github.com/fabulouspanda/MacMiner

Which is the 1.0.2 release of the 10.8 version and will be update to each current release. Let me know if you want me to create a github project for the 10.7 version - they're very similar though. I would definitely appreciate a star, and even more a clone perhaps with occasional commits if you spot anything that could be cleaned up. It would be great to get the 'open-source' aspect of the project going beyond just giving people a way to compile the app themselves!

So if anyone really wants to do me a solid, but like me has a tendency to spend just over the amount of money free each month, either forking the code and putting in pull requests or mining on my p2pool node (0.5% fee) would make my day!

The pool:
pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332
username - your BTC address
password anything you like

no registration necessary, got it running stable now with 116% efficiency and 1/4 the network's dead share rate
promise no more than 5 mins downtime every two days until the new dedicated server is set up which will have much less downtime (which will be added as a primary A record for the same address and the old one won't be taken offline until no-one is still mining on it)
there's a possibility of that 5mins downtime every 2/3 days as the latency of the pool talking to bitcoind keeps increasing but it hasn't affected mining. If it does it'll take less than 5 mins to restart bitcoind. You can also get stats on how much you're making and the pool here with the same url pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332 in your browser

[NR3000]

Does it work with block erupter USB? and I can't find cgminer in /Applications/MacMiner.app/Contents/Resources/. Only bfgminer. It supports block erupter USB? Thank you very much!

[Anonymailer]

Does it work with block erupter USB? and I can't find cgminer in /Applications/MacMiner.app/Contents/Resources/. Only bfgminer. It supports block erupter USB? Thank you very much!

the 10.7 version currently has CG Miner, which definitely doesn't support it. The 10.8 version has bfgminer 3.0.2 which supports most FPGA devices but I think support for the block erupter it's new to the git and not in 3.0.2

So to answer your question -10.7-no 10.8-maybe
both in the near future: definitely.

[Anonymailer]

Calling all intrepid beta testers: here's a beta 1.1 for 10.8 - there are a lot of minor known issues but I want to get some feedback on the new additions.

http://fabulouspanda.co.uk/macminer/beta/MacMiner.app1.1beta.zip

Changes:

No need for an installer - just place in your applications folder, all the libraries are included in the .app

auto-config option (so far only set up for BFG Miner, and for BTC) - this is the main thing I want feedback for. You can either set up with just a BTC address with servers pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332 a second p2pool node chosen for uptime and low fee every update (as they often go down this one is subject to change but currently nogleg.com:9332 and eligius in that priority (they failover if one goes down) OR choose a primary pool to set up and if you enter your BTC address use Fabulous Panda pool and eligius as backup. skipping this allows you to set up BFG Miner but if you auto-config just press 'start' in the BFG Miner window - in any case it'll load your auto config entered server(s)

new options method (incomplete and only in BFG Miner so far)


GUI overhall

Fabulous Panda pool is a p2pool node with a 0.5% fee (transactions go to miners) and the fee goes to support development of MacMiner and maintenance for the pool. Check it's stats here:
http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332/static/

Feedback would be appreciated!

[UNOE]

I'm about to test this out with three 7970's just for the fun of it.
I just got the 7970's booting with OSX.  But I have a feeling they won't be able to mine.  Since 10.8.3 is still a early version of the 7xxx drivers.

[Anonymailer]

I'm about to test this out with three 7970's just for the fun of it.
I just got the 7970's booting with OSX.  But I have a feeling they won't be able to mine.  Since 10.8.3 is still a early version of the 7xxx drivers.

I'd be interested to hear how it goes! I'm guessing that's a hackintosh, unless you're using PCI risers? 7970 should work in a Mac Pro, the only difference unless you flash the card being a lack of a boot screen.

[Anonymailer]

v1.1 for 10.8 has been released, the new auto-config is currently only setting up the BFG Miner window as I hope to get some more feedback before rolling it out throughout. I'll be updating the docs soon, and the next to come is bringing the 10.7 version inline.

The failover pools (and anything else, incidentally) for BFG Miner can be manually edited in /Applications/MacMiner.app/Contents/Resources/bfgurls.conf and an interface to do so within the app will appear in a future version.

[Xian01]

FWIW, trying to get mining working under OSX 10.7 with the newfangled USB Block Erupters, and it seems that CGminer 2.11.4 does not support --icarus-options.

 Is building 3.1.1 a huge pain for OSX ?

[LaserHorse]

FWIW, trying to get mining working under OSX 10.7 with the newfangled USB Block Erupters, and it seems that CGminer 2.11.4 does not support --icarus-options.

 Is building 3.1.1 a huge pain for OSX ?

I seem to recall it required a newer version of a dependency(libcurl maybe?) that I couldn't find via Macports

[emunebtk]

FWIW, trying to get mining working under OSX 10.7 with the newfangled USB Block Erupters, and it seems that CGminer 2.11.4 does not support --icarus-options.

 Is building 3.1.1 a huge pain for OSX ?

lets just say it takes plenty of trial and error but i finally got 3.1.1 working on 10.7 thru using homebrew. Macports had way to many issues and had to uninstall it and take the homebrew route which finally got working. You need these dependencies : coreutils autoconf automake jansson libgcrypt libgpg-error libtool libusb pkg-config yasm curl

The following guides helped me but if i remember correctly i had to change a few scrypt lines to finally get it working...if you run into an error at any point let me know and I will see what I can do to help. Also googling your error and adding osx bitcoin mining to the end seems to usually bring up a workaround to fix that problem and bring you the next..best of luck!

http://www.spaceman.ca/blog/?p=235
http://blog.nwoolls.com/2013/04/24/bitcoin-mining-on-mac-os-x-cgminer-bfgminer/

I'm about to test this out with three 7970's just for the fun of it.
I just got the 7970's booting with OSX.  But I have a feeling they won't be able to mine.  Since 10.8.3 is still a early version of the 7xxx drivers.

I'd be interested to hear how it goes! I'm guessing that's a hackintosh, unless you're using PCI risers? 7970 should work in a Mac Pro, the only difference unless you flash the card being a lack of a boot screen.

just doing a little fun litecoin testing on my MBP retina w/Nivida GT 650m with the newest update while i am out of town from the 10.7 mac pro..and no it is not my regular mining machine or do i really use it for one but have to keep myself occcupied somehow while staying in hotel rooms..and the power is free Currently on the new MacMiner for 10.8 my CPU miner does not start, nor does bfgminer and macminer poclbm window acts like it is working and gets to this and then stops? :

Code:

mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332 30/05/2013 02:27:47, checking for stratum...

                                                                                
mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332 30/05/2013 02:27:47, using JSON-RPC (no stratum header)

                                                                                
mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332 30/05/2013 02:27:47, LP connected to mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332

Also when I try to add --scrypt to MacMiner window it is not recognized   Any update on some love for that 10.7 update? my mac pro 1,1 would certainly love it!!
As for hash rates I get a 160/m on bitcoin but when LTC mining on a 5770 in mac pro i can get up to 50/60k using a intensity of 12 and --thread-concurrency 3200 and -w 64. I should be getting 130/k so still trying to figure that one out. Sounds like the opencl issue that was mentioned could be why   Going back to MBP testing with 10.8 I can get about 45/khash using CPUMiner from previous macminer update and roughly 25/k using cgminer in terminal. When I use bfgminer in terminal it gets bout 7-10 khash so Cgminer seems to be the better way to go for MBP's. Honestly though after a month of playing with mining on osx it is a shit ton of fun but profit wise very slim and decided to buy some litecoins the past week as i am only at .7 of a LTC in mining for over a week and something with Hypernova pool which is not acceptable. Will keep mining though and possibly just make a windows rig to do the real damage. But for now mining on an osx is goodtime and just fun and will keep working on getting that hashrate a doable one.

[Anonymailer]

FWIW, trying to get mining working under OSX 10.7 with the newfangled USB Block Erupters, and it seems that CGminer 2.11.4 does not support --icarus-options.

 Is building 3.1.1 a huge pain for OSX ?

cgminer has USB issues with Mac OS at the moment, I'll be replacing it with BFG Miner ASAP which should work with those

lets just say it takes plenty of trial and error but i finally got 3.1.1 working on 10.7 thru using homebrew. …

I'd just warn people NOT to install macports and homebrew on the same machine unless you really know what you're doing or you can mess up your system

just doing a little fun litecoin testing on my MBP retina w/Nivida GT 650m with the newest update while i am out of town from the 10.7 mac pro..and no it is not my regular mining machine or do i really use it for one but have to keep myself occcupied somehow while staying in hotel rooms..and the power is free Currently on the new MacMiner for 10.8 my CPU miner does not start, nor does bfgminer and macminer poclbm window acts like it is working and gets to this and then stops? :

Code:

mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332 30/05/2013 02:27:47, checking for stratum...

                                                                                
mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332 30/05/2013 02:27:47, using JSON-RPC (no stratum header)

                                                                                
mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332 30/05/2013 02:27:47, LP connected to mining.usa.la.hypernova.pw:9332

Also when I try to add --scrypt to MacMiner window it is not recognized   Any update on some love for that 10.7 update? my mac pro 1,1 would certainly love it!!
As for hash rates I get a 160/m on bitcoin but when LTC mining on a 5770 in mac pro i can get up to 50/60k using a intensity of 12 and --thread-concurrency 3200 and -w 64. I should be getting 130/k so still trying to figure that one out. Sounds like the opencl issue that was mentioned could be why   Going back to MBP testing with 10.8 I can get about 45/khash using CPUMiner from previous macminer update and roughly 25/k using cgminer in terminal. When I use bfgminer in terminal it gets bout 7-10 khash so Cgminer seems to be the better way to go for MBP's. Honestly though after a month of playing with mining on osx it is a shit ton of fun but profit wise very slim and decided to buy some litecoins the past week as i am only at .7 of a LTC in mining for over a week and something with Hypernova pool which is not acceptable. Will keep mining though and possibly just make a windows rig to do the real damage. But for now mining on an osx is goodtime and just fun and will keep working on getting that hashrate a doable one.

What does the BFG Miner output look like on 10.8?

The MacMiner window (poclbm) doesn't support scrypt, or p2pool for that matter. on 10.7 use -T --scrypt

[emunebtk]

I'd just warn people NOT to install macports and homebrew on the same machine unless you really know what you're doing or you can mess up your system

Yes..very true! something I should of added and will be sure to going forward.

What does the BFG Miner output look like on 10.8?

unfortunately I get no output/stats with bfgminer window in MacMiner on 10.8. I hit start and it just does nothing...or did you mean the output from bfgminer in terminal?

The MacMiner window (poclbm) doesn't support scrypt, or p2pool for that matter. on 10.7 use -T --scrypt

So in the new 1.02 update for 10.8 does any of it support scrypt? honestly though won't be using 10.8 to mine LTC anyway but just happy to help test it out for you. 10.7 OSX is my main mining system