Mining-noob needs help

[Swoop]

Hi guys,

Excuse me for my english because its not my first language.
Personally I have an IT background and I'm relatively new to the whole crypto stuff. Just for the matter of my own interest, I've tried to set up GPU mining on a windows 10 PC. I used geth + ethminer with a GTX 970 graphics card. However there are still some things I don't understand about the whole mining process. So I'm hoping to find people who use ethminer and can explain me a few things. If someone knows good links to get started with mining, I would be interested too.

1. So first you download the blockchain with geth. So far so good. Is it possible to set the target location by yourself or is it predetermined to be located in the appdata folder (kind of suboptimal in my opinion)?
2. After the blockchain is downloaded, u have to run geth in the background in order to keep the blockchain updated (in sync). I still don't understand how ethminer and geth work together. I mean how does ethminer know if your blockchain is up to date and where to find it? I never had to tell the programm where I've saved my stuff.
3. How do you actually get ETH? I mean if I mine with lets say 20MH/s how long would it take to get ETH for me and how much would it be? Do I need to run the mining process non stop or is it possible to let it run for 12h a day and still get rewards? And how does ethminer know on which address it needs to deposit the ETH?

Actually I have a lot more to ask but I think that is enough for now.

Thanks in advance,

Michael

[os2sam]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=401897.msg4353159#msg4353159

[unholycactus]

Also you should probably just stop mining with a Nvidia card.
Chances are you'll burn down your house before turning a significant profit, even with an altcoin.

[Jdope]

Nvidia cards are really profitable actually, the new generation at least.

As for OP, mining eth does not have to be this complicated, you can download claymore's miner (you'll find a topic for it in this subforum), download Jaxx wallet or any other Ethereum wallet you would like, make yourself an address, input it in the claymore bat script and you're done. You can now mine ethereum. You don't have to download the blockchain or any of that stuff. As for profit calculations, refer to cryptocompare, or just search google for eth mining calculator, i suggest you try searching for Nemos miner too (a thread here), your gtx 970 is most probably more profitable on another coin