[ANN] NicerMiner 0.5.8 - MPH mining app based on NHML v1.9.0.5

[mobileanarchy]

Release 0.5.0 - 2018-05-07
Updated to sync with NHML v1.9.0.1
Removing support for ASIC controlled algos (Groestl, Myriad-Groestl and Qubit) - no point in wasting time benching them
Adding support to new CPU algos - Yescrypt, Lyra2z and another CryptonightV7 miner that might be faster than XmrStak on your machine
Ethash/Keccak dual=mining is now supported out-of-the-box, no need to override anything.

Download NicerMiner v0.5.0:
https://github.com/odedolive/NicerMiner/raw/master/releases/NicerMiner%200.5.0.zip

[bitbomber05]

Just a heads up NHML 1.9.0.2 came out yesterday, current build of NM seems to be working ok for the time being though 

[mobileanarchy]

Already on it.
I hope to get a new release tonight.

Also, how interested are you in supporting additional CPU algorithms?

I'm also looking at adding support for Bminer with it's new Eth Dual mining modes.

[bitbomber05]

Nice!
To be honest, with the CPU algos ive never seen my rig using anything but xmr-stak so unless the profitability is up on the others I'm not sure its needed. Plus i noticed that XMRig is back in the new build anyway which it used to occasionaly swith to. I know you said the other algos were more profitable on yours but I could only get the following to bench: xmrstak, cpumineroptjaydeeAES (for CNv7, Lyra2z & yescrypt) and the rest of the yescrypt except 2SHA.

All the GPU algos benched fine but would be interested in Bminer also if its up there with claymore because the profitability on the GPU changes quite often.

EDIT: minor correction, all the CPU algos bench except the 2SHA ones but only the ones I listed above actually mined, the others just sat idle.

[mobileanarchy]

Here we go:

Release 0.5.1 - 2018-05-24
Updated to sync with NHML v1.9.0.2

Download NicerMiner v0.5.1:
https://github.com/odedolive/NicerMiner/raw/master/releases/NicerMiner%200.5.1.zip


After taking another look at the new dual mining from bminer, it seems like the dual algos are useless for MPH users.
I'll keep researching though.

[bitbomber05]

Cheers, just updated to new version, seems to be working well.

[Logic-Elliven]

I've merged v1.9.0.1 into NicerMiner.
I also added support for new CPU algos - Yescrypt and Lyra2z (on my CPU, Yescrypt is around 20%-30% more profitable than CNv7), plus another implementation of the CNv7 algo, you might find faster than XmrStak, so give it a try.

I'm running tests tonight and I'll try to figure out a way to pack this new version, as I'll have to ship it with a new CPU miner (https://github.com/JayDDee/cpuminer-opt/releases/tag/v3.8.8)

Stay tuned.

Ye..!? Well on my machine xmr-stak defaults to running on core 0 and 1.
Its an A8 which means it's trying to share 2 MB of L2 cache between 2 physical cores and only one FPU.
Everyone knows you need at least 2MB (preferably 2x or even 3x that) of L2+L3 cache to run the cryptonight algo effectively...dont they..?

A8's like 'no prefetch' set to false.  Intel's; not so much.  
(This is all in .../nicerminer.../bin/xmr-stak/cpu.txt)

Then all machines like .../nicerminer.../bin/xmr-stak/config.txt's 'use slow memory' set to 'warn' or 'false' and Huge/Large pages enabled.

With these settings, xmr-stack blows past Yesscrypt.
(0.00002511 BTC/day vs. 0.00002269 on my machine.  That's over 88H/s/core before anyone laughs!   )

If you are making/modding mining apps, one would think you know how to set them up properly..!??
You might even build said proper setup into the app..!

Then whats up with nicerminer.exe causing a ~25% CPU load when the miner/s is otherwise idle?
I note that the file is waaay bigger than the NH equivalent...?  Something fishy here..??

[Logic-Elliven]

What file/s, if any besides Nicerminer.exe, need access through the firewall to get MPH profitability data?
Does Nicerminer.exe (and others?) need incoming, as well as outgoing access?  TCP? UDP?  port #/s?

[bitbomber05]

I've merged v1.9.0.1 into NicerMiner.
I also added support for new CPU algos - Yescrypt and Lyra2z (on my CPU, Yescrypt is around 20%-30% more profitable than CNv7), plus another implementation of the CNv7 algo, you might find faster than XmrStak, so give it a try.

I'm running tests tonight and I'll try to figure out a way to pack this new version, as I'll have to ship it with a new CPU miner (https://github.com/JayDDee/cpuminer-opt/releases/tag/v3.8.8)

Stay tuned.

Ye..!? Well on my machine xmr-stak defaults to running on core 0 and 1.
Its an A8 which means it's trying to share 2 MB of L2 cache between 2 physical cores and only one FPU.
Everyone knows you need at least 2MB (preferably 2x or even 3x that) of L2+L3 cache to run the cryptonight algo effectively...dont they..?

A8's like 'no prefetch' set to false.  Intel's; not so much.  
(This is all in .../nicerminer.../bin/xmr-stak/cpu.txt)

Then all machines like .../nicerminer.../bin/xmr-stak/config.txt's 'use slow memory' set to 'warn' or 'false' and Huge/Large pages enabled.

With these settings, xmr-stack blows past Yesscrypt.
(0.00002511 BTC/day vs. 0.00002269 on my machine.  That's over 88H/s/core before anyone laughs!   )

If you are making/modding mining apps, one would think you know how to set them up properly..!??
You might even build said proper setup into the app..!

Then whats up with nicerminer.exe causing a ~25% CPU load when the miner/s is otherwise idle?
I note that the file is waaay bigger than the NH equivalent...?  Something fishy here..??

Appreciate the technical input here, I'm definitely not knowledgeable with the tech stuff which I why I prefer the GUI miners like NHML and NM. The attraction with NM is that a lot of people prefer to use MPH to the NH and Coinbase.
I'm sure mobileanrachy is doing their best and can hopefully incorporate your comments into the next build as the CPU loading when idle is something I had noticed on one of my rigs as well. Try not to be so critical of people just because they're not as knowledgeable as yourself, we're all learning something here.

[QuickMaths]

New project looks interesting.

[bitbomber05]

@mobileanarchy just a heads up, NHML v1.9.0.3 is out now. Supports Lyra2Z and CrypyoNightHeavy out of the box   

[astronyu]

I'm first time trying multi-algo mining.
Is there a way to include excavator?

[astronyu]

May I know if there is a script or software to notify us in case of miner crashed?
Checked my MPH stats and saw no activity, remotely logged into the pc and saw NM was not running at all.

[bitbomber05]

May I know if there is a script or software to notify us in case of miner crashed?
Checked my MPH stats and saw no activity, remotely logged into the pc and saw NM was not running at all.

I've never had any issues with the miner crashing, the only time its stopped was due to a power outage. Usually I check in periodically on MPH stats or MPH monitor for Android to make sure its still running.
Maybe upload a log file for mobileanarchy to have a look over?

[astronyu]

May I know if there is a script or software to notify us in case of miner crashed?
Checked my MPH stats and saw no activity, remotely logged into the pc and saw NM was not running at all.

I've never had any issues with the miner crashing, the only time its stopped was due to a power outage. Usually I check in periodically on MPH stats or MPH monitor for Android to make sure its still running.
Maybe upload a log file for mobileanarchy to have a look over?

Not sure what happened last time but I have since download and install a lightweight freeware called "Restart on crash" to take care of restarting Nicerminer if it detects the software not responding or not running.
Spoke too soon, it crashed again today.

[mobileanarchy]

Hi,

I'm looking at merging 1.9.0.3 right now.
Running some tests as we speak.

Regarding the default miner settings: I had no idea, as I'm not CPU mining on any of my rigs (I do a shallow test to make sure it works, but turn it off after a short while)
I'm not sure about overriding the default settings, because if might have a negative effect on other users (tweaking might work for you, but break the app for others)

Regarding the question about CPU load while idle - I'll try to dig into it. I am not doing anything funny in the background other than loading MPH profitability data.
And the NM zip file is bigger than NHML - it's because I ship it bundled with a CPU miner instead of downloading it on first launch. I only started doing that in the past couple of releases (you can see the history at GitHub)

[astronyu]

I have memory issue a lot with Genoil Ethminer. Claymore is running fine mining both Ethereum and Keccak but ethminer often crashed.
after a while, nicerminer itself crashed.

Is there a way to replace bundled ethminer with this version manually?
https://github.com/ethereum-mining/ethminer/releases

I tried replacing ethminer.exe with the github version the mining windows closed as soon as it opened.

Code:

Genoil's ethminer 0.9.41-genoil-1.1.5-nicehash-1.1.2
=====================================================================
Forked from github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum
CUDA kernel ported from Tim Hughes' OpenCL kernel
With contributions from nicehash, nerdralph, RoBiK and sp_ 

Please consider a donation to:
ETH: 0xeb9310b185455f863f526dab3d245809f6854b4d

Found suitable CUDA device [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] with 6442450944 bytes of GPU memory
Benchmarking on platform: CUDA
Preparing DAG for block #57164
  i  07:28:22|cudaminer0  set work; seed: #290decd9, target: #000000000000
  i  07:28:22|cudaminer0  Initialising miner...
Warming up...
Generating DAG seed 290decd9548b62a8d60345a988386fc84ba6bc95484008f6362f93160ef3e563
Using device: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Compute 6.1) THREADS=128 BLOCKS=8192
Generating DAG for GPU #2
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 0%
Cuda error in func 'ethash_generate_dag' at line 129 : an illegal memory access was encountered.
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 6%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 12%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 18%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 24%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 29%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 35%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 41%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 47%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 53%
Genoil's ethminer 0.9.41-genoil-1.1.5-nicehash-1.1.2
=====================================================================
Forked from github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum
CUDA kernel ported from Tim Hughes' OpenCL kernel
With contributions from nicehash, nerdralph, RoBiK and sp_ 

Please consider a donation to:
ETH: 0xeb9310b185455f863f526dab3d245809f6854b4d

Found suitable CUDA device [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] with 6442450944 bytes of GPU memory
Benchmarking on platform: CUDA
Preparing DAG for block #57165
Warming up...
  i  08:03:18|cudaminer0  set work; seed: #290decd9, target: #000000000000
  i  08:03:18|cudaminer0  Initialising miner...
Generating DAG seed 290decd9548b62a8d60345a988386fc84ba6bc95484008f6362f93160ef3e563
Using device: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Compute 6.1) THREADS=128 BLOCKS=8192
Generating DAG for GPU #2
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 0%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 6%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 12%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 18%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 24%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 29%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 35%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 41%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 47%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 53%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 59%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 65%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 71%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 76%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 82%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 88%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 94%
Copying DAG from GPU #2 to host
Trial 1... 14889779
Trial 2... 14994636
Trial 3... 14889779
Trial 4... 14994636
Trial 5... 14889779
min/mean/max: 14889779/14931721/14994636 H/s
Genoil's ethminer 0.9.41-genoil-1.1.5-nicehash-1.1.2
=====================================================================
Forked from github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum
CUDA kernel ported from Tim Hughes' OpenCL kernel
With contributions from nicehash, nerdralph, RoBiK and sp_ 

Please consider a donation to:
ETH: 0xeb9310b185455f863f526dab3d245809f6854b4d

Found suitable CUDA device [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] with 6442450944 bytes of GPU memory
Benchmarking on platform: CUDA
Preparing DAG for block #57209
  i  02:20:31|cudaminer0  set work; seed: #290decd9, target: #000000000000
  i  02:20:31|cudaminer0  Initialising miner...
Warming up...
Generating DAG seed 290decd9548b62a8d60345a988386fc84ba6bc95484008f6362f93160ef3e563
Using device: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Compute 6.1) THREADS=128 BLOCKS=8192
Generating DAG for GPU #2
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 0%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 6%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 12%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 18%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 24%
Cuda error in func 'ethash_generate_dag' at line 129 : an illegal memory access was encountered.
Genoil's ethminer 0.9.41-genoil-1.1.5-nicehash-1.1.2
=====================================================================
Forked from github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum
CUDA kernel ported from Tim Hughes' OpenCL kernel
With contributions from nicehash, nerdralph, RoBiK and sp_ 

Please consider a donation to:
ETH: 0xeb9310b185455f863f526dab3d245809f6854b4d

Found suitable CUDA device [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] with 6442450944 bytes of GPU memory
Benchmarking on platform: CUDA
Preparing DAG for block #57126
Warming up...
  i  02:41:14|cudaminer0  set work; seed: #290decd9, target: #000000000000
  i  02:41:14|cudaminer0  Initialising miner...
Generating DAG seed 290decd9548b62a8d60345a988386fc84ba6bc95484008f6362f93160ef3e563
Using device: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Compute 6.1) THREADS=128 BLOCKS=8192
Generating DAG for GPU #2
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 0%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 6%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 12%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 18%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 24%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 29%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 35%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 41%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 47%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 53%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 59%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 65%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 71%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 76%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 82%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 88%
Generate DAG device CUDA#2: 94%
Copying DAG from GPU #2 to host
Trial 1... 20447232
Trial 2... 20237516
Trial 3... 20342374
Trial 4... 20447232
Trial 5... 20237516
min/mean/max: 20237516/20342374/20447232 H/s
inner mean: 13596535 H/s

[mobileanarchy]

I can try to bundle the new version with the app, and whenever the underlying code is trying to use Ethminer, just point it at the new version.
I'll have to test it of course.
I have GeForce GTX 1060 6GB on my dev machine, so I can test Ethminer myself using this configuration.

[astronyu]

I can try to bundle the new version with the app, and whenever the underlying code is trying to use Ethminer, just point it at the new version.
I'll have to test it of course.
I have GeForce GTX 1060 6GB on my dev machine, so I can test Ethminer myself using this configuration.

Many thanks!


One other thing, is this behavior normal? I thought the mining windows were supposed to be closed when switching also, seems the ethminer didn't get the memo.

[bitbomber05]

May I know if there is a script or software to notify us in case of miner crashed?
Checked my MPH stats and saw no activity, remotely logged into the pc and saw NM was not running at all.

I've never had any issues with the miner crashing, the only time its stopped was due to a power outage. Usually I check in periodically on MPH stats or MPH monitor for Android to make sure its still running.
Maybe upload a log file for mobileanarchy to have a look over?

Not sure what happened last time but I have since download and install a lightweight freeware called "Restart on crash" to take care of restarting Nicerminer if it detects the software not responding or not running.
Spoke too soon, it crashed again today.

Depending on your setup there is an option is an setting to 'run script when CUDA GPU is lost'. I've never used it but you could give that a try.