Claymore Only Recognizing Half my VRAM

[skateboarddude30]

Hello,

I'm having some problems with getting Claymore to start mining.  I'm receiving "cannot allocate big buffer for DAG." when I try to start the miner, and it eventually has GPU failure and restarts the miner, then loops back and does it over and over again.  I've looked it up and  DAG issues largely seem to be resolved by increasing virtual memory (which I've done) and then the threads almost all end there, so i can't figure the issue, as this isn't resolving mine.

So after trying all the common fixes for this (pagefile, lidag, environmental variables, all that shit) I finally noticed that while the miner is launching and reporting my hardware, it shows 2GB available on my GPU, which is a 4GB VRAM card.  I have seen a ton of people with 4GB cards that are recognized through claymore as a 2GB, but that was still large enough for DAG and the miner didn't actually fail, they just thought they could increase hashrate.

I've tried removing the environmental variables in the startup file as well as through windows itself, and run both with and without them.  I've tried -lidag 0 (low intensity DAG) that fixed it for some, this was not a fix for me.  I've tried installing newer gpu drivers, as well as running older GPU drivers, but I'm not sure if there's a specific version that runs best for my card, haven't seen any discussions.


This is my current startup folder. (Coinotron pool)  Again, I have added and removed environmental variables with no luck either way.

EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool coinotron.com:3344 -ewal username.workername -esm 2 -epsw workerpassword -dcoin pasc -dpool coinotron.com:3348 -dwal username.workername -dpsw workerpassword -allpools 1


The rig I'm trying to get going looks like this:
GTX770 (4GB)
16GB physical ram
32gb virtual memory (i've gone everywhere from 16gb-32gb and 32gb on 2 different HDDs to see if it'd be fixed. both SSD and HDD)
i7 4770k (doesn't really seem to impact the miner itself)


Long story short, I haven't been able to find a thread that discusses how to get Claymore to recognize the full VRAM on a card, other than a few guys who said they could reformat and run the miner on a fresh build, and it would recognize the full VRAM one time, then every subsequent claymore instance would only recognize 3GB.  Their solution was to format, create a restore point, and restore every single time they had to shut down/restart machine to that point, then start mining again.


Any ideas?

[GeePeeU]

Have you tried specifying VRAM capacity in the BAT?
Are your drivers up to date, or on an ideal version?

I don't use claymore, but if there is an option for this you should assign it to the correct amount and see if that fixes your issue.

[skateboarddude30]

As far as I can see in the readme, there is nothing allowing specification of VRAM or RAM amount.  You can change memory voltage, speed, and GPU voltage/speed intensity all that shit, but nothing regarding actual amount of VRAM or RAM.

[GeePeeU]

Is the issue prevalent in software other than Claymore?


Does your mobo bios have an option to enable 4g decoding across all PCIE lanes? If so, you need to enable it.

[skateboarddude30]

DXDiag and just about every other diagnostic/monitoring software recognizes the GPU memory at 4095mb.

I'll check out the bios and see if I can enable 4g decoding.

[GeePeeU]

Have you tried a different mining software. Not just diagnostics software ?

[skateboarddude30]

That I have not tried, as from what I've seen claymore is the best option for hashrate and dualmining ETH/PASC.  Most of the information I've read seems a bit dated, but that was the thing I'm going to try if I can't get things working.  Ultimately the only reason I'd do that would be as a diagnostic procedure, to see if another mining software also recognizes only 2GB.  That being said, I don't necessarily know that it's going to resolve the problem, other than "yeah, problem solved, you should use that software instead."  My ultimate goal is to have Claymore working, not to have some other mining software, but I may just try it in order to try to help find the issue.

Kinda surprised I can't find anybody with direct experience with claymore.

[GeePeeU]

You should give another mining software a shot for the sake of troubleshooting.
This will tell you if it Claymore giving you issues, or it will rule it out.

When doing diagnostics, It helps tremendously if you work on narrowing down the options rather than just trying random potential fixes. 

[skateboarddude30]

Yeah, I understand that, I was just stating that it doesn't really indicate much more than claymore causing the issues, which I feel I've already determined.  No graphical software or any other software my computer has used has ever had any issues with VRAM being under reported or under detected.  I have never run a mining software on this PC, so your point does hold, just explaining my thought process.

I'll try it, as it's kind of the only thing I can do at this point.

[GeePeeU]

Yeah, I understand that, I was just stating that it doesn't really indicate much more than claymore causing the issues, which I feel I've already determined.  No graphical software or any other software my computer has used has ever had any issues with VRAM being under reported or under detected.  I have never run a mining software on this PC, so your point does hold, just explaining my thought process.

I'll try it, as it's kind of the only thing I can do at this point.

By the sounds of it, I would assume 4g decoding by the mobo bios, or claymore, to be suspect.  mess around a bit and report back if you refine the issue further.

Goodluck,

Hashy New year.

[skateboarddude30]

Looks like the card is actually 2GB and has some sharing to give it 4GB 'total memory'.  Ultimately 2GB dedicated VRAM so it's not enough to mine.

My mistake, I guess I was reading the wrong metric when I was looking up my VRAM, not entirely sure how NVidia is reporting 4GB to the OS and games functionally.

Since I'm assuming the DAG has to actually run on the VRAM, there's just not enough space to actually fit.

You were right the other mining software would have indicated this as well.

[GeePeeU]

Looks like the card is actually 2GB and has some sharing to give it 4GB 'total memory'.  Ultimately 2GB dedicated VRAM so it's not enough to mine.

My mistake, I guess I was reading the wrong metric when I was looking up my VRAM, not entirely sure how NVidia is reporting 4GB to the OS and games functionally.

Since I'm assuming the DAG has to actually run on the VRAM, there's just not enough space to actually fit.

You were right the other mining software would have indicated this as well.

Yea the Dag file can't really be split up, and utilizes a little more than 2gb. Which is why 3gb is minimum required.

No worries tho, your 2gb card will still work on plenty of other algorithms.

Cheers !