I'm the author of Bitcoin Miner on the Windows Store, let me know what you think

[optimiz3]

Hi folks, I’m the author of Bitcoin Miner on the Windows Store, and would love to hear your feedback on how I can make it better!

Some quick design goals:
-   Ultra user friendly
-   Widely accessible (GPU & CPU mining, DirectX/DirectCompute mining, runs on x86, x64 & ARM)

http://www.groupfabric.com/Content/images/tablet_image_580.png

I released the app one month ago and so far the response has been tremendous!  Bitcoin Miner has risen to be one of the top free Finance apps, and is the only Bitcoin miner certified by Microsoft for the Windows Store.  I've been working furiously to add the features people want, and would love to hear what the pro users here would like to see.

Windows Store Url: http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/bitcoin-miner/cd9a3350-60c9-4836-a50c-c5a7c5e58867
Bitcoin Miner Info: http://www.groupfabric.com/bitcoin-miner/
Bitcoin Miner Feature Voting: http://www.groupfabric.com/bitcoin-miner/support/

Any questions I can answer?  What would you guys like to see next?

All the best,

Alex

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[optimiz3]

Thanks MicroGuy, I'd been meaning to get on this board earlier, but had just been spending too much time coding!  Bitcoin Miner is completely written from scratch in a mixture of C#/XAML (UI high level code), C++ & Assembly (mining cores and kernels), and HLSL (GPU shaders).

Now that I've gotten the "core" out of the way, I'm going to try and be much more active in the community

[lch]

I think your design would be cleaner if you remove the gradient background. And replace the stop buttons background with #E74C3C.

[optimiz3]

That's a good call out lch - I'm not a designer by trade (Computer Science/engineer); in the app itself there isn't a white gradient, it comes from the screenshot template Microsoft distributes for tablet images.

WRT the button background, one thing I struggled with was the possibility of E74C3C being too close to the orange background I use, the other challenge was the possibility of colorblind people having a hard time distinguishing between foreground and background (I'm not color blind myself and don't have the resources to test this, so would appreciate any insight if people know this area.)

EDIT: Grammar

[lch]

Checkout the website in my sig, the #E74C3C is distinct enough from the background, and the color instinctually inform that you are stoping something because most people tend to associate red with danger, stop, etc.

As for color blind people, you can test it out in photoshop. Theres a setting to let you see what color blind people are actually seeing.

[optimiz3]

TIL Photoshop has a colorblind filter, thanks lch!

Do you have any thoughts on a shade of green for the button when it shows "Start", or is it something that one would keep gray?  

Something else I just thought of - agree that red for Stop makes sense - I'm weighing this against possibly being unpleasant (red = blood, anger, etc.) if the user looks at the stats above the button for a long time (though probably not an issue as most people will run this off to the side).

Separate: one of the links in your profile 404s, not sure if that is by design.

[ranlo]

How does this compare to cgminer and other mining programs?

[optimiz3]

ranlo: The goal of Bitcoin Miner is to make mining super easy. To that end it's completely GUI driven instead of command line.  It also supports ARM (non-Intel) versions of Windows like Windows RT.  Finally, it's the only DirectCompute/DirectX GPU miner out there which can be handy if OpenCL isn't available.  The ARM CPU mining performance is really decent too, I've gotten ~2.5-3 MH/s out of a Microsoft Surface RT (NVidia Tegra 3 ARM processor) @ 8W of power usage.

[ranlo]

ranlo: The goal of Bitcoin Miner is to make mining super easy. To that end it's completely GUI driven instead of command line.  It also supports ARM (non-Intel) versions of Windows like Windows RT.  Finally, it's the only DirectCompute/DirectX GPU miner out there which can be handy if OpenCL isn't available.  The ARM CPU mining performance is really decent too, I've gotten ~2.5-3 MH/s out of a Microsoft Surface RT (NVidia Tegra 3 ARM processor) @ 8W of power usage.

Oh, I got that part. I meant in regards to like hash rates, if anyone has run this and CGMiner to see how similar they are. I like the idea behind it, just curious mostly.

[lch]

Do you have any thoughts on a shade of green for the button when it shows "Start", or is it something that one would keep gray? 

The start button can be green, but it doesn't jive well with the color scheme. So how about #F1C40F. And gray can work but perhaps you should try something more saturated like #BDC3C7.

Separate: one of the links in your profile 404s, not sure if that is by design.

Arg... I mistyped my own domain name.. thanks for the save.

[optimiz3]

Ah sorry - I've done some side by side:

When dealing with hardware that directly supports OpenCL (AMD w/ bitselect (BFI_INT) and rotate), cgminer/bfgminer will perform better.  This is because DirectCompute doesn't expose bitselect and rotate primitives.  If your hardware doesn't have bitselect/rotate acceleration, then Bitcoin Miner is pretty close and in several cases exceeds.  The main cases where Bitcoin Miner wins right now are:

1. Hardware that does not accellerate OpenCL bitselect/rotate
2. ARM CPU mining (ARM does have a vector bitselect, and rotate can be done in 2 instructions)
3. Hardware that has better DirectX than OpenCL support (i.e. NVidia)
4. EDIT: Laptops that will throttle down the GPU when the CPU isn't being pushed, the hybrid CPU/GPU mining in Bitcoin Miner pushes the CPU just enough to ensure it doesn't clock down when mining primarily on the GPU.

As far as why this is - Microsoft currently does not allow Windows Store apps to call OpenCL APIs, the only GPU acceleration available to Windows Store apps is DirectX.  I am looking into a regular desktop version of Bitcoin Miner, but there are only 24hrs in a day, and this is one of the reasons I am here to get feedback .

[ranlo]

Ah sorry - I've done some side by side:

When dealing with hardware that directly supports OpenCL (AMD w/ bitselect (BFI_INT) and rotate), cgminer/bfgminer will perform better.  This is because DirectCompute doesn't expose bitselect and rotate primitives.  If your hardware doesn't have bitselect/rotate acceleration, then Bitcoin Miner is pretty close and in several cases exceeds.  The main cases where Bitcoin Miner wins right now are:

1. Hardware that does not accellerate OpenCL bitselect/rotate
2. ARM CPU mining (ARM does have a vector bitselect, and rotate can be done in 2 instructions)
3. Hardware that has better DirectX than OpenCL support (i.e. NVidia)

As far as why this is - Microsoft currently does not allow Windows Store apps to call OpenCL APIs, the only GPU acceleration available to Windows Store apps is DirectX.  I am looking into a regular desktop version of Bitcoin Miner, but is there are only 24hrs in a day, and this is one of the reasons I am here to get feedback .

Thanks for the response! I'm definitely looking forward to what you come up with in the future. A CPU and GPU program would be awesome (instead of having to run two separate ones to achieve the same).

[carr251]

Good job with the clean interface.

[uniibearr]

How do you know whether it is running on CPU or GPU??? I would much rather mine run on GPU!

[optimiz3]

Bitcoin Miner uses all GPUs it can find and 20% of the CPU when a GPU is present to prevent the machine from going into a lower power state.  You'll know GPUs are being used if CPU usage hovers around 20%.

[uniibearr]

How do you know whether it is running on CPU or GPU??? I would much rather mine run on GPU!

Thank you for such an amazing simple app.

I wish you had a way to see or switch from CPU to GPU since you say that you can run on both. I also am wondering if it is still running when i do other things on my desktop because it says it will stop working untill it goes idle but id much rather it run at all times.

My last suggestion is that you have a settings option... so that people can further select things even the colour of the background page would be nice, but it definetally needs a setting option


I LOVE THIS APP.
I wouldnt be able to mine without it. Thank you alex and i Hope to get your reply to my questions it would be greatly appreciated.

[optimiz3]

Thanks for the kind words!

Best way to help me track new feature ideas is to post them here: http://www.groupfabric.com/support/

It lets you and other people vote on what I think about next, and helps me prioritize work.

That said, I am working on adding more options, but the best options are the ones which "just work" and don't need to be set .


Re: Desktop mode - so for Windows 8 Apps, suspend is completely controlled by the OS.  Basically if the app isn't visible, Windows will probably suspend it.  What most users do is Snap the app to the side so it doesn't take up a lot of space.  Also, the app does register to run in the background when you start mining, but again this is completely controlled by the OS.  Windows 8 doesn't let Store Apps run in the BG and use a lot of resources unless the machine is:

1. Idle
2. Plugged In

So net, the best bet is to dock it on the side of the screen if you need to use other apps.

[Krisjohntrip]

Nice app. When work starts up again for me there's a person with a Surface RT tablet that I know will have fun with this, so thanks for doing the RT version.

[sepears]

best looking Windows Store in long time.