OFFICIAL CGMINER mining software thread for linux/win/osx/mips/arm/r-pi 4.11.1

[os2sam]

They drove a dumptruck full of money and unloaded it on my front lawn. I'm not made of stone. It's not quite true, but some people are still donating (thanks!!), and the alleged other uses for longpoll on the same block were valid.

I'm using --donate 5 right now.  Please don't confuse that with supporting Merged Mining, because I don't.
Thanks for your great work.
Sam

[1714942135]

1714942135

[1714942135]

1714942135

[DeathAndTaxes]

It was suggested that I=8 be used for 5xxx series ATI cards, while I=9 be used for the 69xx series cards.

I did some playing around after a few stalls here and there and actually found that for my quad 6950 rig, I actually get a higher share/min rate ("U" value) when I use I=8 rather than I=9, as suggested.....and no GPU stalling or driver crashing with a much higher overclock.

Is I=9 still suggested for 69xx cards ?

There is no hard fast rule because there are a lot of variables.  Essentially Intensity determines how big of a chunk of hashes the GPU processes at one time.  More hashes at once = less overhead however when a block changes it means more wasted hashes because the GPU can't be stopped once it starts a "run".

ckolivas can correct me if I am wrong but the I rating is more based on the hashing power of the card.  The more hashes you can complete in 1 second the larger the optimal "batch" should be = higher I value.  However other factors can alter that too.  If your pool is issuing higher number of LP a lower I value reduces the amount of potential stales.  So really it is a balancing act between stales & raw hashing power.

I am currently still using 2.0.6 and love it......insane performance. I pretty much use I=8 for everything, except for working-workstations, where I use Dynamic Intensity and it all works great.

If you have more than one GPU and all your monitors hooked up to a single GPU you can set the "monitor" GPU to dynamic and all other cards to a high I value.  For example my 3x5970 workstation has 1 GPU set to D and the other 5 set to I=9.  If you have multiple monitors hook them all up to the same GPU to minimze the number of GPU which need to be set to dynamic.

[os2sam]

If you have more than one GPU and all your monitors hooked up to a single GPU you can set the "monitor" GPU to dynamic and all other cards to a high I value.  For example my 3x5970 workstation has 1 GPU set to D and the other 5 set to I=9.  If you have multiple monitors hook them all up to the same GPU to minimze the number of GPU which need to be set to dynamic.

That doesn't hold true for Windoze does it?  Since I have to extend the desktop to the GPU without the monitor to enable it.  Whatever I do to that GPU seems to have an effect on the desktop GUI as well.
Sam

[DeathAndTaxes]

If you have more than one GPU and all your monitors hooked up to a single GPU you can set the "monitor" GPU to dynamic and all other cards to a high I value.  For example my 3x5970 workstation has 1 GPU set to D and the other 5 set to I=9.  If you have multiple monitors hook them all up to the same GPU to minimze the number of GPU which need to be set to dynamic.

That doesn't hold true for Windoze does it?  Since I have to extend the desktop to the GPU without the monitor to enable it.  Whatever I do to that GPU seems to have an effect on the desktop GUI as well.
Sam

With new(er) drivers you shouldn't need to do any tricks like extending desktops or using dummy plugs.  My Win7 workstations has 3 monitors all on a single GPU.  None of the other GPU have any desktops extended to them.  I can't remember which driver version got rid of the need for that but it has been a long time.

[bitlane]

If you have more than one GPU and all your monitors hooked up to a single GPU you can set the "monitor" GPU to dynamic and all other cards to a high I value.  For example my 3x5970 workstation has 1 GPU set to D and the other 5 set to I=9.  If you have multiple monitors hook them all up to the same GPU to minimze the number of GPU which need to be set to dynamic.

That doesn't hold true for Windoze does it?  Since I have to extend the desktop to the GPU without the monitor to enable it.  Whatever I do to that GPU seems to have an effect on the desktop GUI as well.
Sam

With new(er) drivers you shouldn't need to do any tricks like extending desktops or using dummy plugs.  My Win7 workstations has 3 monitors all on a single GPU.  None of the other GPU have any desktops extended to them.  I can't remember which driver version got rid of the need for that but it has been a long time.

I was just about to post the same thing...lol
No 'extending' required since 11.7
One GPU shows up in display properties, but all 4 are seen and used by CGMiner in my quad-card setups.
No more dummy plugs either.....

[os2sam]

If you have more than one GPU and all your monitors hooked up to a single GPU you can set the "monitor" GPU to dynamic and all other cards to a high I value.  For example my 3x5970 workstation has 1 GPU set to D and the other 5 set to I=9.  If you have multiple monitors hook them all up to the same GPU to minimze the number of GPU which need to be set to dynamic.

That doesn't hold true for Windoze does it?  Since I have to extend the desktop to the GPU without the monitor to enable it.  Whatever I do to that GPU seems to have an effect on the desktop GUI as well.
Sam

With new(er) drivers you shouldn't need to do any tricks like extending desktops or using dummy plugs.  My Win7 workstations has 3 monitors all on a single GPU.  None of the other GPU have any desktops extended to them.  I can't remember which driver version got rid of the need for that but it has been a long time.

Hmm,  I'm using Catalyst 11.6 and tried it with that version and also 11.7 and neither could do it, plus the 11.7 has the high CPU utilization issue.

If you get a chance take a peek at which version Catalyst your using drop me a note and I'll give it a whirl.

Thanks,
Sam

[os2sam]

I was just about to post the same thing...lol
No 'extending' required since 11.7
One GPU shows up in display properties, but all 4 are seen and used by CGMiner in my quad-card setups.
No more dummy plugs either.....

So, is your CPU utilization high with 11.7?
Sam

[bitlane]

I was just about to post the same thing...lol
No 'extending' required since 11.7
One GPU shows up in display properties, but all 4 are seen and used by CGMiner in my quad-card setups.
No more dummy plugs either.....

So, is your CPU utilization high with 11.7?
Sam

I am currently running 11.8 across the board and yes, still 100% CPU issue, but mainly (only) on 5xxx multi-card rigs from what I can tell..

I have since given up on an actual fix and resorted to either scripted or manual affinity settings to a single CPU thread for CGMiner on 5xxx series cards (which seem to be the worst), as none of my 69xx multiple card machines are affected (or atleast not 100% pegged CPU on them anyways).

Oddly enough, For a brief while I ran a machine with 2x 6950's and a single 5830 together....and NO 100% bug, so I guess it's only multiple 5xxx cards that trigger it.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Hmm,  I'm using Catalyst 11.6 and tried it with that version and also 11.7 and neither could do it, plus the 11.7 has the high CPU utilization issue.

If you get a chance take a peek at which version Catalyst your using drop me a note and I'll give it a whirl.

Thanks,
Sam

I will double check I think it may be 11.7.  I reduce the effect of the 100% bug (which I also had on 11.5 & 11.6 but maybe because I wasn't extending desktop) by using a batch file which launches cgminer limited to a single CPU by affinity.

[os2sam]

I am currently running 11.8 across the board and yes, still 100% CPU issue, but mainly (only) on 5xxx multi-card rigs from what I can tell..

And 5xxx cards is what I have.  Does the 100% CPU utilization cause much extra heat and electricity usage?

I currently have two hard drives setup for this system.  One with Win7 32bit and the other with WinXP, which is what I currently running.  Maybe I should revisit the Win7 config with the newer Catalyst.

Thanks for the input guys.
Sam

[bitlane]

I am currently running 11.8 across the board and yes, still 100% CPU issue, but mainly (only) on 5xxx multi-card rigs from what I can tell..

And 5xxx cards is what I have.  Does the 100% CPU utilization cause much extra heat and electricity usage?

I currently have two hard drives setup for this system.  One with Win7 32bit and the other with WinXP, which is what I currently running.  Maybe I should revisit the Win7 config with the newer Catalyst.

Thanks for the input guys.
Sam

I've never really monitored it much......but I am sure that heat and additional power consumption would be a result.

If you want to 'solve' this (somewhat), simply launch CGMiner with a bat file, in which you can also assign CPU affinity, overclock/underclock core & mem, set fan speeds etc, all at the same time.....it's a decent solution to the problem and you won't have to worry about it on any of your muti-thread/core machines once setup in the bat file. Throw a shortcut to the bat file into your 'All users' startup folder (assuming you are a Windows user, like myself...lol), set the machine to auto-login.... and have everything fire up at bootup and call it a day. DONE & DONE.

[os2sam]

I am currently running 11.8 across the board and yes, still 100% CPU issue, but mainly (only) on 5xxx multi-card rigs from what I can tell..

And 5xxx cards is what I have.  Does the 100% CPU utilization cause much extra heat and electricity usage?

I currently have two hard drives setup for this system.  One with Win7 32bit and the other with WinXP, which is what I currently running.  Maybe I should revisit the Win7 config with the newer Catalyst.

Thanks for the input guys.
Sam

I've never really monitored it much......but I am sure that heat and additional power consumption would be a result.

If you want to 'solve' this (somewhat), simply launch CGMiner with a bat file, in which you can also assign CPU affinity, overclock/underclock core & mem, set fan speeds etc, all at the same time.....it's a decent solution to the problem and you won't have to worry about it on any of your muti-thread/core machines once setup in the bat file. Throw a shortcut to the bat file into your 'All users' startup folder (assuming you are a Windows user, like myself...lol), set the machine to auto-login.... and have everything fire up at bootup and call it a day. DONE & DONE.

Yep, I'm currently a Windoze user for mining.  What's the CLI command for setting processor affinity?  Didn't know that could be done from the command line.
Thanks again,
Sam

[bitlane]

I believe it's different for XP and Win7. Hit up Google for specific examples...that's where I got mine from

[os2sam]

I believe it's different for XP and Win7. Hit up Google for specific examples...that's where I got mine from

Will do.
Thanks,
Sam

[DeathAndTaxes]

Yep, I'm currently a Windoze user for mining.  What's the CLI command for setting processor affinity?

Code:

c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C start [b]/affinity 8 [/b] /d c:\bitcoin\cgminer\ c:\bitcoin\cgminer\cgminer.exe <cgminer options here>

The affinity flag is binary
CPU core 1 = 1
CPU core 2 = 2
CPU core 3 = 4
CPU core 4 = 8

It is that way in case you wanted (which we don't) to restrict an app to multiple cores (i.e. affinity 6 would restrict process to 2nd & 3rd core).

[os2sam]

Yep, I'm currently a Windoze user for mining.  What's the CLI command for setting processor affinity?

Code:

c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C start [b]/affinity 8 [/b] /d c:\bitcoin\cgminer\ c:\bitcoin\cgminer\cgminer.exe <cgminer options here>

The affinity flag is binary
CPU core 1 = 1
CPU core 2 = 2
CPU core 3 = 4
CPU core 4 = 8

It is that way in case you wanted (which we don't) to restrict an app to multiple cores (i.e. affinity 6 would restrict process to 2nd & 3rd core).

I took notes and will make use of them when I fire up my Win7 install again for testing.
Thanks,
Sam

[MadHacker]

Yep, I'm currently a Windoze user for mining.  What's the CLI command for setting processor affinity?

Code:

c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C start [b]/affinity 8 [/b] /d c:\bitcoin\cgminer\ c:\bitcoin\cgminer\cgminer.exe <cgminer options here>

The affinity flag is binary
CPU core 1 = 1
CPU core 2 = 2
CPU core 3 = 4
CPU core 4 = 8

It is that way in case you wanted (which we don't) to restrict an app to multiple cores (i.e. affinity 6 would restrict process to 2nd & 3rd core).

I took notes and will make use of them when I fire up my Win7 install again for testing.
Thanks,
Sam

just so that u know it uses hex values,
on my machine i have it set to core 8 = 80

[-ck]

They drove a dumptruck full of money and unloaded it on my front lawn. I'm not made of stone. It's not quite true, but some people are still donating (thanks!!), and the alleged other uses for longpoll on the same block were valid.

I'm using --donate 5 right now.  Please don't confuse that with supporting Merged Mining, because I don't.
Thanks for your great work.
Sam

For that I thank you muchly! I was thinking more about cgminer simply working as good as possible with the largest BTC mining pools by default.

[ancow]

Hmm,  I'm using Catalyst 11.6 and tried it with that version and also 11.7 and neither could do it, plus the 11.7 has the high CPU utilization issue.

If you get a chance take a peek at which version Catalyst your using drop me a note and I'll give it a whirl.

Last time I tried 11.9, it didn't have the 100% CPU utilisation bug either in windows or Linux. In Linux, however, my KDE desktop became a little too crashy for my tastes and the hashing speed went down slightly. I didn't have either problem in windows, but then I don't run it much.
I don't know about the dummy plugs/desktop extending issue, but it might be worth a try.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Hmm,  I'm using Catalyst 11.6 and tried it with that version and also 11.7 and neither could do it, plus the 11.7 has the high CPU utilization issue.

If you get a chance take a peek at which version Catalyst your using drop me a note and I'll give it a whirl.

Last time I tried 11.9, it didn't have the 100% CPU utilisation bug either in windows or Linux. In Linux, however, my KDE desktop became a little too crashy for my tastes and the hashing speed went down slightly. I didn't have either problem in windows, but then I don't run it much.
I don't know about the dummy plugs/desktop extending issue, but it might be worth a try.

1 GPU or 2+ GPU.

11.9 fixed 100% bug but only w/ 1 GPU according to AMD forums.