[XPM] [ANN] Primecoin High Performance | HP14 released!

[mikaelh]

-hp7 is out with Sunny King's bugfix!

This release contains Sunny King's important fix for mining large blocks. Last night we had an issue with one person sending out big transactions. The transactions were legit but the miner choked on them because it was creating block templates too frequently. Sunny King's patch fixes the issue so that new block templates are created only when needed. New transactions are only included at 10 second intervals. A new block being broadcasted on the network will still of course reset the miner.

I did also put in a small performance improvement for the sieve that was ready to go.

[Tuck Fheman]

-hp7 is out with Sunny King's bugfix!

This release contains Sunny King's important fix for mining large blocks. Last night we had an issue with one person sending out big transactions. The transactions were legit but the miner choked on them because it was creating block templates too frequently. Sunny King's patch fixes the issue so that new block templates are created only when needed. New transactions are only included at 10 second intervals. A new block being broadcasted on the network will still of course reset the miner.

I did also put in a small performance improvement for the sieve that was ready to go.

Thanks mikaelh!

[testz]

Thanks!

[Lauda]

5 Linux Servers running latest HP6 with 30K PPS ~ total and only 1 BLOCK SO FAR (14+ HOURS ) = NEGATIVE $67

I mined a block before DDOS (or it was a bug with the network)... I can safely say I am really not really MINING blocks anymore. Hope I see some action in the next 24 hours.

You can't blaim the coin for your bad investment.

Blame*

and did I blame the coin? and the servers mined a decent amount of blocks prior to the crash today... so you can't say its a bad investment either. Go back to QRK coin, you might be able to get a quick $0.05 out of 10k coins ~

EDIT: you know its all fun and games at the end of the day! so I'll be first to say, I am joking, hehe?

Obviously that correction mattered. Yes you complained, you made huge mistakes there.
Stop spying on me, QRK earned me more than you and half of the people mining XPM will.
Get real servers and then you won't go into an loss.

[maco]

Obviously that correction mattered. Yes you complained, you made huge mistakes there.
Stop spying on me, QRK earned me more than you and half of the people mining XPM will.
Get real servers and then you won't go into an loss.

Can I get you something to drink? Water? Go relax under the sun a bit... It sounds like you are just passing through.

[mikaelh]

I forgot to mention that -hp7 should reduce the amount of random crashes since the crashes happen during block template creation. It's not a complete fix but it should help a bit.

[maco]

I forgot to mention that -hp7 should reduce the amount of random crashes since the crashes happen during block template creation. It's not a complete fix but it should help a bit.

Thanks mikaelh you are doing a superb job. He deserves some tips  

[Lauda]

Obviously that correction mattered. Yes you complained, you made huge mistakes there.
Stop spying on me, QRK earned me more than you and half of the people mining XPM will.
Get real servers and then you won't go into an loss.

Can I get you something to drink? Water? Go relax under the sun a bit... It sounds like you are just passing through.

/slap for being ignorant.

[maco]

Obviously that correction mattered. Yes you complained, you made huge mistakes there.
Stop spying on me, QRK earned me more than you and half of the people mining XPM will.
Get real servers and then you won't go into an loss.

Can I get you something to drink? Water? Go relax under the sun a bit... It sounds like you are just passing through.

/slap for being ignorant.

* maco weaves Good-bye!

That sure was an executed IRC command and now used in the forum using /me

[jammertr]

I'm getting  internal compiler error when compiling hp7 on Ubuntu 12.04 & 13.04
anyone having same problem

[Trillium]

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

[mikaelh]

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

Well, there's a couple of things you can check (added these to the FAQ):
1. Make sure you're not using the 32-bit version which is slower.
2. Don't compare prime rate against a lower network difficulty. Difficulty went over 9 couple of days ago. Everyone's hash rate dropped by about 30%.

In general prime rate should not go down between releases as long as they are being compared against the same network difficulty. If someone has experienced a drop that is not explained by the previous two points, then please post some information about your system.

If -sievesize is not working, then you're putting it in the wrong place. EDIT: I also updated the FAQ concerning this.

[gigawatt]

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

Doublecheck that you don't have sievesize set in your primecoin.conf file?

[xyzzy099]

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

I believe that when you set sievesize from the command line, you need to leave a space between the switch and the value for it to parse correctly, i.e., "-sievesize 4000000".  If you are setting it in your .conf file, then you need the '=' sign.

[Trillium]

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

Well, there's a couple of things you can check (added these to the FAQ):
1. Make sure you're not using the 32-bit version which is slower.
2. Don't compare prime rate against a lower network difficulty. Difficulty went over 9 couple of days ago. Everyone's hash rate dropped by about 30%.

In general prime rate should not go down between releases as long as they are being compared against the same network difficulty. If someone has experienced a drop that is not explained by the previous two points, then please post some information about your system.

If -sievesize is not working, then you're putting it in the wrong place. EDIT: I also updated the FAQ concerning this.

I am definitely using the 64 bit version as I had previously.

My prime rate was 2400 with v5 then I extracted v7 and ran it, only gets 1200-1300 now. It only took me 1 minute to extract the new version and change the target I run, this is not comparing between days.

I was trying to get 4M sievesize with this shortcut command to start it:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "runlow" /low C:\primecoin-0.1.1-hp7-winx64\primecoin-qt.exe -gen -setgenerate true -sievesize=4000000

But as I said it wasn't working: The problem was simply that -setgenerate true was supposed to be -setgenerate=true. Now the parameter after it (sievesize) works properly:

except... it crashes on 4M. So I have it running on 2M right now:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "runlow" /low C:\primecoin-0.1.1-hp7-winx64\primecoin-qt.exe -gen -setgenerate=true -sievesize=2000000

Doublecheck that you don't have sievesize set in your primecoin.conf file?

I dont use or have a primcoin.conf file.

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

I believe that when you set sievesize from the command line, you need to leave a space between the switch and the value for it to parse correctly, i.e., "-sievesize 4000000".  If you are setting it in your .conf file, then you need the '=' sign.

As I found, it seems that when using parameters in a shortcut's target field, you must use = sign instead of the space.

https://i.imgur.com/d7qiw8W.jpg

[mikaelh]

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

I believe that when you set sievesize from the command line, you need to leave a space between the switch and the value for it to parse correctly, i.e., "-sievesize 4000000".  If you are setting it in your .conf file, then you need the '=' sign.

Nope, you need to use the '=' sign without any spaces in between. That's how Primecoin (Bitcoin) command line parameters work.

Some examples:
primecoin-qt.exe -sievesize=2000000
primecoind.exe -sievesize=2000000

[gatra]

hey mikaelh!
try this: in the function FermatProbablePrimalityTestFast, you don't need this part:

Code:

   // Failed Fermat test, calculate fractional length
    mpz_sub(mpzE, mpzN, mpzR);
    mpz_mul_2exp(mpzR, mpzE, nFractionalBits);
    mpz_tdiv_q(mpzE, mpzR, mpzN);
    unsigned int nFractionalLength = mpz_get_ui(mpzE);
    if (nFractionalLength >= (1 << nFractionalBits))
        return error("FermatProbablePrimalityTest() : fractional assert");
    nLength = (nLength & TARGET_LENGTH_MASK) | nFractionalLength;

If Fermat's test fails, just return false. The fractional part is irrelevant if your first number in the chain is not prime. Since most candidates fail Fermat's test, this code is executed many times, so it should give you some speed up. It did increase PPS 25% for me, but I didn't have the trial division optimization.
btw, I don't know how effective is that, we are looking for Fermat's pseudo primes to the base 2, not for actual primes, so maybe your optimization is filtering numbers that would have passed the test.

For those who'd like to share some love: ARQYnPjkeSgtmx41bypmnkbcHLvWPafGR5
I'd do a pull request, but there's no github anymore


regards

[mikaelh]

My prime rate was 2400 with v5 then I extracted v7 and ran it, only gets 1200-1300 now. It only took me 1 minute to extract the new version and change the target I run, this is not comparing between days.

I was trying to get 4M sievesize with this shortcut command to start it:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "runlow" /low C:\primecoin-0.1.1-hp7-winx64\primecoin-qt.exe -gen -setgenerate true -sievesize=4000000

But as I said it wasn't working: The problem was simply that -setgenerate true was supposed to be -setgenerate=true. Now the parameter after it (sievesize) works properly:

-setgenerate is not a valid command line parameter. It doesn't do anything. Also your syntax was incorrect as you already noticed (you must use the '=' sign, not a space). The incorrect syntax is probably the reason why the -sievesize parameter was not processed.

Can you find out what your CPU model is? It may help me figure out why your performance has dropped.

[xyzzy099]

I just went from v5 to v7 and now my prime rate is halved. Anyone else having this? Is it because of the optomizations made (ie. more efficient/accurate)?

Also, I have set:  -sievesize=4000000

but when I view stats with getmininginfo it always says its on 1M not 4M?

I believe that when you set sievesize from the command line, you need to leave a space between the switch and the value for it to parse correctly, i.e., "-sievesize 4000000".  If you are setting it in your .conf file, then you need the '=' sign.

Nope, you need to use the '=' sign without any spaces in between. That's how Primecoin (Bitcoin) command line parameters work.

Some examples:
primecoin-qt.exe -sievesize=2000000
primecoind.exe -sievesize=2000000

Sorry, I stand corrected.

[Trillium]

OK I was full of sh!t, I went back to version 5 and 1M SS as I had been using and I get relatively low PPS, so it must simply be the difficulty increase you mentioned. The highest PPS values I am seeing now with v5 is ~1760 but often it reports lower than that, usually ~1300-1400. This is what I was getting with v7. I'm surprised the difficulty has had such a impact so quickly, I'm sure just last night it was regularly over 2000 PPS. I just saw your OP edit:

2. Network difficulty has changed. Prime rate goes down when the integer part of the difficulty changes (i.e. going from 8.xx to 9.xx). It's a feature of the mining algorithm and nothing can be done about it.

I had been assuming it was continuously varying between the integers. 

FWIW I'm using a Core2Quad Q9550 @ stock speeds (2.83 GHz).

I am glad though that the sievesize parameter issue has been cleared up though.