[1050 TH] BitMinter.com [1% PPLNS,Pays TxFees +MergedMining,Stratum,GBT,vardiff]

[DrHaribo]

Make bitcoins at the BitMinter mining pool!

Why you want to join us:

• ASICs supported with variable difficulty and your choice of 1: Stratum, 2: GBT, or 3: getwork with rollntime
  
• Merged mining - get namecoins for free while you make bitcoins
• Fast custom miner, easy to use, requires no installation
• Only 1% mining fee! Additional optional donation can be adjusted after signup.
• We pay income from transaction fees in addition to the freshly minted coins
• Hopper-safe: income is split fairly between users (weighted and shift-based PPLNS)
• Immediate payout upon block confirmation, in addition to hourly payment runs
• Very few stales (meaning more bitcoins)

Joining us takes seconds:

• 1. Fill in the little sign-up form at https://bitminter.com/signup
• 2. Start the miner with "engine start" here or on our website (Java required)
• 3. Experience mining the way it should be

Connect with any miner:
You can click the "engine start" button to launch BitMinter client, our user-friendly alternative, or in case you already have a mining client installed, here's how to connect to BitMinter.

We support all three communication protocols for mining. The old "getwork" protocol is the most primitive. Of the two new mining protocols, GBT (getblocktemplate) is focused on letting miners see (or even modify) the contents of the blocks they are mining, while Stratum is focused on using very little bandwidth.

Connect to stratum+tcp://mint.bitminter.com:3333 (Stratum) or http://mint.bitminter.com:8332 (GBT or getwork). As user name put your BitMinter user name, an underscore, then a worker name, e.g. DrHaribo_FastWorker. In case you have firewall issues, port 5050 (Stratum) and 80 (GBT/getwork) are also available.

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[Daveid]

Great concept in theory, but I cannot for the life of me get it to come even close the my Phoenix 1.50 + modified Phatk kernel results.

5850 @ 980/370 Mhz worksize 256
Pheonix: 403~
Bitminter: 360~

Quite a bit of difference! I'll try to fiddle around with it later, might possibly be Java slowing it.

Edit: Ok, so I changed the break interval to 1000ms and using the latest Java 7 JRE, and I saw results up to 440~, Incredible!
However, the miner fluctuates very badly. Since it's updating every second because of the break interval, you see it hit that really high number, then go to 360~, then even down to 320~ after that, then right back to 440~

If somehow that could be fixed, the fluctuations, this would definitely be my miner of choice

[OCedHrt]

I'm not getting the same "better" results from my 4850 on a 6870. Getting about 255-257 (occasionally peaks at 271) when I can easily get 277-280 using poclbm using latest phatk kernel and 264 on Phoenix with phatk (same kernel).

But a few suggestions for the website:
1. Really needs to show total hash rate otherwise can't tell what's going on.
2. Better stats for solved blocks such as how much I got for each block, and possibly even how many shares.
3. Better real time stats such as how long the block has been running for, how many shares total for this block so far, how many each worker has submitted, etc.

[DrHaribo]

Sorry you are not seeing satisfactory speed on your GPUs, guys. I am ordering a Radeon 5870 so I can make sure it runs well on your cards (VLIW5 architecture). I probably begin tweaking for that in a day or two.

Daveid: Glad to hear you like the miner. Today it only shows a 2-second average. I'll be implementing a longer-running average soon - it seems to be a common thing people want.

OCedHrt: I'll have total hash rate displayed very soon. Also better/more statistics are coming soon. But I'm not sure about real time stats, as it would aid pool hoppers. Of course I could switch to score-based payouts instead of proportional, but I'm not sure I like that system. I prefer everything to be as transparent and easy to understand as possible.

Right now you can see how many shares a worker ever produced in total, under "my account". I'm thinking of adding a reset-button and "shares since last reset" as well. That might be a good substitute for "shares submitted for current block" ?

[SteveFL]

Tried this on a 5850 930/310 worksize 256 .  Was seeing about ~339MH/s

Using: phoenix.exe DEVICE=0 -u http://xxxxx_5850:xxxxx@mint.bitminter.com:8332 -k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT WORKSIZE=256 FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=13  gives me ~379 when it was running:

Code:

[09/07/2011 20:45:11] Phoenix 1.50 starting...
[09/07/2011 20:45:11] Connected to server
[09/07/2011 20:45:57] Result: 739060d3 accepted
[09/07/2011 20:46:26] Result: a2b15060 accepted
[09/07/2011 20:46:28] Result: dde3f5ff accepted
[09/07/2011 20:46:34] Result: e70c04af accepted
[09/07/2011 20:46:34] Result: 7641f7d6 accepted
[09/07/2011 20:46:39] Result: 2f70848d accepted
[09/07/2011 20:46:56] Disconnected from server
[09/07/2011 20:47:03] Warning: work queue empty, miner is idle
[09/07/2011 20:47:03] Connected to server
[09/07/2011 20:47:22] Disconnected from server
[09/07/2011 20:47:25] Warning: work queue empty, miner is idle
[09/07/2011 20:47:25] Connected to server
[09/07/2011 20:47:41] Disconnected from server
[09/07/2011 20:47:47] Warning: work queue empty, miner is idle
[09/07/2011 20:47:47] Connected to server
[09/07/2011 20:48:01] Disconnected from server
[09/07/2011 20:48:01] Result: 0adeb3ab rejected
[09/07/2011 20:48:07] Result: 1dd61cda accepted
[09/07/2011 20:48:07] Result: 499e0205 accepted
[09/07/2011 20:48:10] Warning: work queue empty, miner is idle
[09/07/2011 20:48:10] Result: 76c9182d accepted
[09/07/2011 20:48:10] Connected to server
[09/07/2011 20:48:25] Disconnected from server
[09/07/2011 20:48:31] Result: c8e0a09b rejected
[09/07/2011 20:48:33] Warning: work queue empty, miner is idle
[09/07/2011 20:48:33] Result: 10dfd9f6 accepted
[09/07/2011 20:48:34] Connected to server
[09/07/2011 20:49:12] Disconnected from server
[09/07/2011 20:49:17] Warning: work queue empty, miner is idle
[09/07/2011 20:49:18] Connected to server

I don't know if it doesn't like phoenix but I'm usually pretty stable with the other pools.  Hope this helps.

[DrHaribo]

Thanks for the testrun, SteveFL.

I will have performance improved on radeon 4xxx and 5xxx in a few days.

The pool works well with Phoenix. I was just upgrading to the latest bitcoind at the moment you got disconnected. For some reason the old bitcoind took a while to shut down, which caused timeouts in the pool.

[Soak]

I notice a big difference with hashrates between original bitcoin client and BitMinter miner (in the best case), look at this:

Original bitcoin client



BitMinter miner



CPU-Z



I hope you will find how to do more than original bitcoin client

[NetTecture]

I notice a big difference with hashrates between original bitcoin client and Bitminter miner (in the best case), look at this:

Gratulations. You just dfound out the difference between CPU and GPU mining. The rest of us did that months ago

The "orignial bitcoin client" is worthless for mining these days, the option will be removed (or has been removed in the most recent build).

[iopq]

I'm still getting only 114Mhash/s with bitminter (manual vectors off, work size 128) vs. 140Mhash/s with poclbm
if you remember what my setup was, it's a 5750 that's not overclocked (Juniper GPU)

Gratulations. You just dfound out the difference between CPU and GPU mining. The rest of us did that months ago

The "orignial bitcoin client" is worthless for mining these days, the option will be removed (or has been removed in the most recent build).

notice he's mining 52khash/s with bitminter

[Soak]

Gratulations. You just dfound out the difference between CPU and GPU mining. The rest of us did that months ago

Do you think the original bitcoin client can mine with a GPU without OpenCL?

Model: SiS 661FX_760_741_M661FX_M760_M741 (visibly old integrated GPU in old mother card at my work).

The "orignial bitcoin client" is worthless for mining these days, the option will be removed (or has been removed in the most recent build).

You can mine with the original bitcoin client by enabling the "gen" parameter with "1" in the bitcoin.conf file.

Else, I mine in peak at 905 Mhashes/GPU with my two 6970 (900 Mhashes max with poclbm). Unfortunately, that's not constant.

[DrHaribo]

Yeah, the CPU-mining code is really bad still. It hasn't been a priority, but I will implement OpenCL mining on CPU (with Intel or AMD drivers) soon.

If that's not fast enough, I'll do by-hand optimized assembly language with SSE instructions. An assembly language solution will probably be far down on the priority list though, as it will be a lot of work for probably little gain. I would need to make shared libraries for Windows, Linux and Mac, and invoke those from the Java Virtual Machine.

The miner seems to do better than the other miners on Radeon 69xx (VLIW-4 architecture), and GeForces.

I still need to optimize for VLIW-5 (Radeon 4000 and 5000 series and part of 6000-series).

Today I was able to find a refurbished Radeon 5970 at a decent price. I'll have it tomorrow and start working on speedups for the VLIW-5 cards. By the way, I thought 5970s were supposed to be impossible to get? Lucky find, I guess...

[OCedHrt]

Sorry you are not seeing satisfactory speed on your GPUs, guys. I am ordering a Radeon 5870 so I can make sure it runs well on your cards (VLIW5 architecture). I probably begin tweaking for that in a day or two.

Daveid: Glad to hear you like the miner. Today it only shows a 2-second average. I'll be implementing a longer-running average soon - it seems to be a common thing people want.

OCedHrt: I'll have total hash rate displayed very soon. Also better/more statistics are coming soon. But I'm not sure about real time stats, as it would aid pool hoppers. Of course I could switch to score-based payouts instead of proportional, but I'm not sure I like that system. I prefer everything to be as transparent and easy to understand as possible.

Right now you can see how many shares a worker ever produced in total, under "my account". I'm thinking of adding a reset-button and "shares since last reset" as well. That might be a good substitute for "shares submitted for current block" ?

That's a good point about pool hopping. Honestly I do some of my own hopping but have no qualms against operators who discourage it

However, because it's proportional, there really needs to be stats on a per block basis - manually reset is a step closer but still annoying. The idea is to be able to see your actual shares / block to verify the reward.

[teukon]

I currently solo mine but would be interested in joining this.  Unfortunately I see that the payout method is proportional which is a deal breaker for me.  Any plans to implement something fairer (like score based shares or shares from last 5 minutes only)?

[DrHaribo]

However, because it's proportional, there really needs to be stats on a per block basis - manually reset is a step closer but still annoying. The idea is to be able to see your actual shares / block to verify the reward.

I think I misunderstood what you meant. What you are talking about will of course be implemented. What I have in mind is that you would click on a block from the block list and come to another page showing how the earnings were split between users. It could show username, number of shares, and BTC paid. Once I get voluntary donations implemented it could show that as well. And also transaction fees and rounding errors. In short, a page to show where every little amount of the bitcoins we earned went.

This may seem like a breach of privacy to some users. But I think it is important for users to be able to see everything that is happening - how else can they trust the pool? What do you think?

[DrHaribo]

I currently solo mine but would be interested in joining this.  Unfortunately I see that the payout method is proportional which is a deal breaker for me.  Any plans to implement something fairer (like score based shares or shares from last 5 minutes only)?

I assume it's a deal breaker because of pool hopping?

I don't have any specific plans, but I have been thinking about the different payout methods. I realize it will be tough to prevent pool hopping with proportional payouts. Delaying stats may work for DeepBit, but it would not work as well for a smaller pool (or stats would have to be delayed much longer).

I think paying for last N minutes is vulnerable to pool hopping too. The more shares were submitted the last N minutes, the less they are worth. And the higher the pool hash rate the better the chance of creating a block. If many shares were submitted and hash rate then dropped: time to pool hop. You don't want to work alone and then give all the money away. If few shares were submitted compared to the current hash rate: time to come back again. Someone else is likely to find a block and you want to get paid.

Maybe "pay per last N shares" is the most fair. If pool hash rate drops there is less chance someone else finds a block that you get paid for. But also you will take over more and more of the N shares at an increased rate, "pushing out" the shares of other users.

Interesting charts on different payout methods: http://eligius.st/~luke-jr/samples/800MH/

I'm open to suggestions.

[OCedHrt]

However, because it's proportional, there really needs to be stats on a per block basis - manually reset is a step closer but still annoying. The idea is to be able to see your actual shares / block to verify the reward.

I think I misunderstood what you meant. What you are talking about will of course be implemented. What I have in mind is that you would click on a block from the block list and come to another page showing how the earnings were split between users. It could show username, number of shares, and BTC paid. Once I get voluntary donations implemented it could show that as well. And also transaction fees and rounding errors. In short, a page to show where every little amount of the bitcoins we earned went.

This may seem like a breach of privacy to some users. But I think it is important for users to be able to see everything that is happening - how else can they trust the pool? What do you think?

Would be better if it's not like bitcoins.lc. I haven't found out how to see my earning history except search for my username on page 50 of the stats list. Having only 0.1% of the hashing power means the data is hard to find

[teukon]

I currently solo mine but would be interested in joining this.  Unfortunately I see that the payout method is proportional which is a deal breaker for me.  Any plans to implement something fairer (like score based shares or shares from last 5 minutes only)?

I assume it's a deal breaker because of pool hopping?

I don't have any specific plans, but I have been thinking about the different payout methods. I realize it will be tough to prevent pool hopping with proportional payouts. Delaying stats may work for DeepBit, but it would not work as well for a smaller pool (or stats would have to be delayed much longer).

I think paying for last N minutes is vulnerable to pool hopping too. The more shares were submitted the last N minutes, the less they are worth. And the higher the pool hash rate the better the chance of creating a block. If many shares were submitted and hash rate then dropped: time to pool hop. You don't want to work alone and then give all the money away. If few shares were submitted compared to the current hash rate: time to come back again. Someone else is likely to find a block and you want to get paid.

Maybe "pay per last N shares" is the most fair. If pool hash rate drops there is less chance someone else finds a block that you get paid for. But also you will take over more and more of the N shares at an increased rate, "pushing out" the shares of other users.

Interesting charts on different payout methods: http://eligius.st/~luke-jr/samples/800MH/

I'm open to suggestions.

You're right, there does seem to be a different kind of hopping problem with PPLNminutes but at least it is very much to the pool's benefit (I guess pool hoppers would try to keep the mining volume constant).  I'm new to pool mining theory and PPLNS is a new discovery for me; it looks better than PPLNM but would be interested to know more about the weaknesses of these payout methods and why the more obviously faulty proportional is preferred.

Also, it strikes me that without any information about the pool at all it is still quite possible to pool hop using the block chain.  Simply mine with the pool for 5 minutes after each block discovery and mine solo the rest of the time.  You are only making money on the blocks which the pool itself finds but you're doing better than 100% nonetheless.  This would be particularly effective against a large pool and the only way I could see them blocking it is penalising you in some way for disconnecting from the pool, or detecting your behaviour and banning you.  Both methods defeat the only advantage to proportional that I see: it's simplicity.

Are there other advantages to proportional aside from simplicity (versus PPLNS)?  I feel there is something very wrong if this is the only advantage to proportional payouts.  Another payout method could be to pay an equal chunk to each user reguardless of their hash rate and this would have the advantage of being even more simple than proportional but very little else going for it.  Just as with proportional, people would take advantage, others would complain, and pool operators would be trying to block/ban people who took advantage and/or hide information to make their pool more attractive to 'honest' miners, all for some algorithmic simplicity.

Sorry, I went a bit far there.  Which pools do you know which do PPLNS?  To me this is more attractive than +5% to be honest.

[Soak]

This may seem like a breach of privacy to some users. But I think it is important for users to be able to see everything that is happening - how else can they trust the pool? What do you think?

You want to make a transparency pool. This is not a breach of privacy because people want the transparency when they sign up to your pool. It's a sign of quality and a particularity of you pool like other have other things like no fee, a kind of paying, an API feature, etc.

I think all your ideas are good, the more the pool is transparency, the better is for all users and for promote your pool. I have essentially signed up for the very good GUI, dedicated miner and the performance (more than phatk tweaks and poclbm, need more stability on the other side..). But if you make full transparency for your pool, that will be awesome!

(And please, I know there isn't a priority, but do anything for the poor CPU like at my work, and like a few people working with poor PC) :p

[DrHaribo]

Another 50 bitcoins minted - good work, guys!

You want to make a transparency pool. This is not a breach of privacy because people want the transparency when they sign up to your pool. It's a sign of quality and a particularity of you pool like other have other things like no fee, a kind of paying, an API feature, etc.

I think all your ideas are good, the more the pool is transparency, the better is for all users and for promote your pool. I have essentially signed up for the very good GUI, dedicated miner and the performance (more than phatk tweaks and poclbm, need more stability on the other side..). But if you make full transparency for your pool, that will be awesome!

Cool that you like it I agree with what you're saying, and I do think most people will want transparency.

(And please, I know there isn't a priority, but do anything for the poor CPU like at my work, and like a few people working with poor PC) :p

I will add OpenCL mining on CPU soon. Hopefully that will be quite fast. It will require installing AMD or Intel OpenCL drivers to run though.

Also, it strikes me that without any information about the pool at all it is still quite possible to pool hop using the block chain.  Simply mine with the pool for 5 minutes after each block discovery and mine solo the rest of the time.  You are only making money on the blocks which the pool itself finds but you're doing better than 100% nonetheless.  This would be particularly effective against a large pool and the only way I could see them blocking it is penalising you in some way for disconnecting from the pool, or detecting your behaviour and banning you.  Both methods defeat the only advantage to proportional that I see: it's simplicity.

Yes, very good explanation - shows why pool hopping will always be a problem with the proportional payout method.

Are there other advantages to proportional aside from simplicity (versus PPLNS)?

Yes, PPLNS doesn't necessarily pay for all shares submitted while working on a block. To some it would probably seem unfair not to get paid for all their work. If you think about it, it doesn't really matter as long as you mine 24/7. But if you mine a little now and then, PPLNS can become very random for you.

Also, proportional is easy for people to understand, and they can even keep score on their end and verify that the pool server isn't cheating them of shares. This isn't easy if the pool server calculates your payout with some complex formula based off of a large amount of numbers. I liked proportional because it is so transparent. But the problem with pool hoppers seems to be growing in the pools, and I see many pools run other payout methods now. I don't want users who come and go to "cheat" money away from the 24/7 miners in my pool.

Which pools do you know which do PPLNS?  To me this is more attractive than +5% to be honest.

It's a pretty new method still, but you can find at least one here in the forum, among the big stickied pools.

There is also a very interesting payout method called shared-maximum-pay-per-share. It seems more fair than PPLNS. But it sounds a little unconfortable to delay payments. And what will potential new users think about a pool that is behind on payments? There is some info on it here: http://eligius.st/wiki/index.php/Shared_Maximum_PPS

I think PPLNS and SMPPS look like the best two. Not sure which one I like better.

Would be better if it's not like bitcoins.lc. I haven't found out how to see my earning history except search for my username on page 50 of the stats list. Having only 0.1% of the hashing power means the data is hard to find

There will also be a place to see complete earning history with transactions like in internet banking. The 5% bonus will show up as a separate transaction in your account. That and more is coming soon.

[iopq]

PPLNS is much better, it doesn't delay payouts when the pool has bad luck