Asteroid -- a new Mac mining client (0.9.7)

[Karin]

Ah, thanks! What is your experience with the Iris graphics? Iris (and Iris Pro) is being used in Apple's latest models which run Haswell.

The Intel Iris Pro is an integrated graphics chipset.  But surprisingly, and for the first time ever on Macs, the Intel Iris Pro graphics can be used with Asteroid for GPU-based mining thanks to the new Mavericks 10.9 which added OpenCL support for those chipsets.  As far as I know, all previous versions of Intel Integrated Graphics would not work.

As for general purpose usage, I think it's a great day-to-day graphics setup.  Mavericks dynamically adjusts the amount of shared VRAM it uses with the rest of the operating system, so it's very memory efficient.  And gaming speeds are on par with what the dedicated graphics chipset was in the previous Mac models.

An Asteroid user reported around 35MH/s when mining Bitcoin.  Litecoin hashing speeds weren't very high either.  Your best bet mining Bitcoin these days is from USB-based ASIC mining devices though, but as a Mac user and tech fan, I'm generally pleased with the Intel Iris Pro for the normal user!  (I like gaming, so I still buy machines with dedicated graphics cards whenever I can for that extra boost)

Either that or purchase a graphics card and connect it via Thunderbolt 2 Thunderbolt is the best thing to happen to the Mac.

I would love to build/use an eGPU!  A desktop-class GPU on a laptop?  Yes please!

From what I hear though, Intel is pretty negative on certifying devices that would allow for consumer-grade eGPU technology, but there are some DIY methods that may be worth exploring...(but it could be so much simpler!)

[1715387707]

1715387707

[forbun]

I have a MacBook Pro and I'd like to try this.

However, I saw from cgminer the following warning:

Q: Can I mine with cgminer on a MAC?
A: cgminer will compile on OSX, but the performance of GPU mining is
compromised due to the opencl implementation on OSX, there is no temperature
or fanspeed monitoring, and the cooling design of most MACs, despite having
powerful GPUs, will usually not cope with constant usage leading to a high
risk of thermal damage. It is highly recommended not to mine on a MAC unless
it is to a USB device.

http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/

Does this problem apply to Asteroid? If not, why not?

[huryde]

How can I trash all preference and get a fresh install?

[XFox]

How can I trash all preference and get a fresh install?

Launch Asteroid while pressing the Option key.

[forzendiablo]

i ttied it on my latest iMAC and on mac mini with maverick osx - on both it never starts mining, it says 'starting' but nothing happends.

any ideas?

[Robert Lewandowski]

Wouldn't you basically break even on solo mining litecoins?

[Karin]

i ttied it on my latest iMAC and on mac mini with maverick osx - on both it never starts mining, it says 'starting' but nothing happends.

any ideas?

The version you used had a bug that prevented Asteroid from updating its display if certain types of USB-based ASICs were connected.  This is now fixed in the latest version, 0.9.4, which you can upgrade to by running Asteroid and going to "Check for updates..." in the Asteroid menu (or by downloading from the first post in this thread).

[Karin]

I have a MacBook Pro and I'd like to try this.

However, I saw from cgminer the following warning:

Q: Can I mine with cgminer on a MAC?
A: cgminer will compile on OSX, but the performance of GPU mining is
compromised due to the opencl implementation on OSX, there is no temperature
or fanspeed monitoring, and the cooling design of most MACs, despite having
powerful GPUs, will usually not cope with constant usage leading to a high
risk of thermal damage. It is highly recommended not to mine on a MAC unless
it is to a USB device.

http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/

Does this problem apply to Asteroid? If not, why not?

Sorry for not replying sooner!  Yes, this problem applies to Asteroid if you are using it to mine with your computer's graphics card.  If however, you are using USB-based mining devices and not your internal graphics card, there are no heating risks to your Mac at all.

[Karin]

Asteroid 0.9.4 is now out
Download here or run "Check for updates..." from the in-app Asteroid menu

This is a maintenance and bug fix release.  There are still some known issues (namely UI quirkiness), but the main improvements are as follows:

• Using cgminer 3.7.2 (which still supports GPU and scrypt mining)
• Mavericks compatibility updates
• Improved speed connecting to any of the default pools
• Reports shares based on diff1 difficulty, so that stats are more relevant

As you may or may not know, the latest versions of the underlying mining engine used by Asteroid, "cgminer", is no longer supporting GPU mining.  Asteroid 1.0 will likely follow suit, but I plan to maintain a GPU-capable version of Asteroid for as long as possible.

Biggest requests I hear are for 10.6 and 10.7 compatibility, which are now next on my list of development priorities.

[Karin]

Asteroid 0.9.5 is now out
Download here or run "Check for updates..." from the in-app Asteroid menu

This is also a bug fix release that should take care of a lot of the rare cases people had where Asteroid wasn't updating.  There are still some known UI issues (particularly for multiple identical devices) but rest assured they are indeed mining (click the "i" to see).  Change log is as follows:

• Preference window should no longer blank out when entering a bitcoin address
• Recommended settings for litecoin/scrypt have been tweaked with sanity checks
• Fixed scenario where Asteroid would never appear to do anything upon launch
• Added ability to disable FTDI VCP drivers
• Option to disable conflicting USB drivers is now only presented when applicable, and in a unified box
• Added ability to remember choice when disabling drivers
• Adding custom pools should now work as expected
• Fixed some scenarios where the miner would be running but Asteroid wouldn't update
• Added "SHA-256" and "scrypt" wordings where applicable, to highlight how to mine altcoins
• Editing a pool will always load entries from the Mac keychain automatically
• Progress bar is set to previous maximum values on launch
• Reset UI elements to reflect changes when switching between coin types

Please remember that Asteroid does not need any extra drivers or installs of any kind, unlike other miners!  True plug-and-play.  

[purelithium]

Asteroid still only displays the hashrate of 1 of my 3 erupters in the UI, but the "Miner Console" lists the proper hashrate. They show up as "AMU-1, AMU-2, AMU-3" instead of "ASICMINER USB Block Erupter" as the image on the website indicates it should be... What's going on?

Also, none of my settings were saved when I upgraded from 0.9.4. Very frustrating.

[Karin]

Asteroid still only displays the hashrate of 1 of my 3 erupters in the UI, but the "Miner Console" lists the proper hashrate. They show up as "AMU-1, AMU-2, AMU-3" instead of "ASICMINER USB Block Erupter" as the image on the website indicates it should be... What's going on?

Ah yes, this bug has been a fickle one.  0.9.5 was mainly a bugfix and compatibility release.  Fortunately it seems as though very few people have any operational/functional problems with it now, so I can refocus now on UI quirks such as this one.  It only affects multiple identical devices (and is tough for me to test as I have some devices but none identical).  Even though I've coded Asteroid to recognize them with a unique ID, there's something in the code that isn't referring to the unique IDs that are internally assigned when it goes to draw the UI.  As you note, they do mine fine regardless, as the console shows.  I hope to squish this one soon, as it's been there a while and will only keep being an issue

Also, none of my settings were saved when I upgraded from 0.9.4. Very frustrating.

Yes, my apologies for that.  However, it should be easy to re-enter pool information if you use one of the default pools as your login information will be pre-populated from previous keychain entries regardless of Asteroid version.  Actually you just gave me an idea, perhaps I can allow custom pools to be saved in a similar manner...  Anyway, Asteroid does include code to migrate preferences from version to version, but the format changed slightly between the two most recent versions and I think there's likely a bug or two in there too.  I'll have a look for 0.9.6, and thanks for the feedback

[Karin]

If you mine Litecoin / scrypt (regardless of what miner frontend you use), the Asteroid website now has a list of all the best settings that Asteroid users have come up with for thread-concurrency and worksize, the two most significant variables when mining scrypt:

    Asteroid's litecoin / scrypt settings database page

The page shows the hashrates and popularity of each GPU, along with the settings used to get those speeds.  It's geared towards Mac users, but the hardware is similar regardless of platform.

This list is updated live, and is also the same database from which Asteroid makes recommendations to users.  Meaning, if you use settings in Asteroid that are faster than everyone else's for the same hardware, Asteroid will upload your settings (with your permission), updating this webpage, and show alerts in Asteroid the next time any other user with that same card launches and faster settings are available on the server.  All within a couple minutes.  Even if you don't choose to upload your settings, you will still get recommendations on the best settings to use, even the first time you launch the app.

So get out there and get hashing!

[purelithium]

Yes, my apologies for that.  However, it should be easy to re-enter pool information if you use one of the default pools as your login information will be pre-populated from previous keychain entries regardless of Asteroid version.  Actually you just gave me an idea, perhaps I can allow custom pools to be saved in a similar manner...  Anyway, Asteroid does include code to migrate preferences from version to version, but the format changed slightly between the two most recent versions and I think there's likely a bug or two in there too.  I'll have a look for 0.9.6, and thanks for the feedback

Pool settings aren't as annoying as having to re-enter my MobileMiner API key. Pool settings are generally easy to remember, but an API key requires me to find it and enter it in manually.

[Karin]

Pool settings aren't as annoying as having to re-enter my MobileMiner API key. Pool settings are generally easy to remember, but an API key requires me to find it and enter it in manually.

The API key is arguably an authentication token that I could easily store in the Keychain too, thus making it independent from any preference file format changes.  I'll add it to the list for the next version

[sboc]

1) When mining LTC I think the speed on the mining speed incorrectly shows MH/S instead of kH/s.
2) The preferences screen is still blank after entering the Bitcoin address.
3) Once the miner is stopped I cannot start it again. I have to qui the program and launch it again.
4) When mining Litecoins there's an issue with the notification message in the dock. Think it says mis....lue or something like that.

Keep it going. It really has potential.

Edit: I am not too sure about 1)

[Karin]

1) When mining LTC I think the speed on the mining speed incorrectly shows MH/S instead of kH/s.
Edit: I am not too sure about 1)

I haven't heard of this bug, since it's strictly a numerical algorithm that gets applied to all hashrates regardless of coin type.  It *might* be that you had selected a Bitcoin pool perhaps by mistake?  I could be wrong though, please let me know if you've confirmed it and/or can repeat it.

2) The preferences screen is still blank after entering the Bitcoin address.

Are you using the latest version of Asteroid?  I added a fix for that bug but it may not have caught it.  I'm guessing the API reply from blockchain.info is giving it a hard time.  I'll add some error-checking at the same time as I implement this same functionality for Litecoin addresses (in the upcoming version of Asteroid).

3) Once the miner is stopped I cannot start it again. I have to qui the program and launch it again.

Thanks, I'll investigate.  If/when you can send in a feedback report (go under the "Asteroid" menu and go to "Send Feedback") with a line or two about what is happening, I'll have the relevant log files as well that Asteroid generates that may help me more quickly troubleshoot your specific setup (and implement a fix for everyone if possible).

4) When mining Litecoins there's an issue with the notification message in the dock. Think it says mis....lue or something like that.

Yes, this bug has been reported, and thanks for doing so as well.  It's actually trying to say "missing value", which is an error that is coming from the litecoin hashrates not being parsed properly.  It's on my list for fixing in the next version.

Keep it going. It really has potential.

Thanks! 

[sboc]

1) When mining LTC I think the speed on the mining speed incorrectly shows MH/S instead of kH/s.
Edit: I am not too sure about 1)

I haven't heard of this bug, since it's strictly a numerical algorithm that gets applied to all hashrates regardless of coin type.  It *might* be that you had selected a Bitcoin pool perhaps by mistake?  I could be wrong though, please let me know if you've confirmed it and/or can repeat it.

I have verified this and it does in fact show incorrectly. I did select a Litecoin pool. I think it might be caused by the fact that my region is set to Denmark - Danish which causes the miner output to display for example 2.345 kH/s instead of 2,345 kH/s. The first option will by English systems be parsed as 2345 which is in fact 2(point)345 MH/s.

And I am using 0.9.5 which I assume being the latest so I guess something does still screw up the preferences after entering the Bitcoin address

[Karin]

I have verified this and it does in fact show incorrectly. I did select a Litecoin pool. I think it might be caused by the fact that my region is set to Denmark - Danish which causes the miner output to display for example 2.345 kH/s instead of 2,345 kH/s. The first option will by English systems be parsed as 2345 which is in fact 2(point)345 MH/s.

And I am using 0.9.5 which I assume being the latest so I guess something does still screw up the preferences after entering the Bitcoin address

Curious, I had another Danish user mention this just tonight too on the official forums.  I think that narrows down the problem (international formats).  Thanks sboc!

[Karin]

0.9.6 is planned for sometime before Christmas, and should include a lot of bug fixes and tweaks for bitcoin and litecoin users (MobileMiner, improved settings sharing, etc).  Thanks for all the feedback reports being submitted!