Use poclbm without OpenCL?

[SeW900]

Hi,

I'm trying to use poclbm on an older PC (I only want it to use the CPU, not the GPU), but I'm getting this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "poclbm.py", line 5, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\__init__.pyc", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 12, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.


- This error, according to some forum posts is because the PC doesn't have OpenCL installed. So is there no way to make poclbm only use the CPU and not require OpenCL installed? Perhaps there is a version of OpenCL that doesn't have to come with the Catalyst drivers...

[antares]

just some random thoughts - If you want to do CPU mining with poclbm you will still need openCL - pocl is an OpenCL miner, and your CPU supports OpenCL just fine. I suppose you install the nvidia openCL support, as it is already integrated into pyOpenCLs requirements on linux, and its a way better implementation than AMD's.

On the other hand, if you're going for CPU mining, the most efficient thing you _can_ do is use ufasofts CPU miner. This one is highly optimized for working with a CPU, does NOT require OpenCL, and it can in everyday use bring you about a 100% speedup versus traditional non-opencl CPU miners, and about 150% more than an OpenCL CPU miner. Note that opencl is just an abstraction layer to abuse generic devices for computing purposes. So it will always be slower than a target-optimized miner(like that one from ufasoft). If you like ufasofts miner(see in this subsection of the forums) I'd suggest you donate some small amount of BTC to the developer.

[Xephan]

Hi,

I'm trying to use poclbm on an older PC (I only want it to use the CPU, not the GPU), but I'm getting this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "poclbm.py", line 5, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\__init__.pyc", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 12, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.


- This error, according to some forum posts is because the PC doesn't have OpenCL installed. So is there no way to make poclbm only use the CPU and not require OpenCL installed? Perhaps there is a version of OpenCL that doesn't have to come with the Catalyst drivers...

If you're using an Intel CPU, they do have an openCL SDK using SSE4. But don't use it for anything else than bypassing the init, it is about 1/3 the speed of direct access on CPU.

[SeW900]

just some random thoughts - If you want to do CPU mining with poclbm you will still need openCL - pocl is an OpenCL miner, and your CPU supports OpenCL just fine. I suppose you install the nvidia openCL support, as it is already integrated into pyOpenCLs requirements on linux, and its a way better implementation than AMD's.

On the other hand, if you're going for CPU mining, the most efficient thing you _can_ do is use ufasofts CPU miner. This one is highly optimized for working with a CPU, does NOT require OpenCL, and it can in everyday use bring you about a 100% speedup versus traditional non-opencl CPU miners, and about 150% more than an OpenCL CPU miner. Note that opencl is just an abstraction layer to abuse generic devices for computing purposes. So it will always be slower than a target-optimized miner(like that one from ufasoft). If you like ufasofts miner(see in this subsection of the forums) I'd suggest you donate some small amount of BTC to the developer.

Nice, the ufasoft miner does work well, I'll certainly donate once I gather some coins.

One last question though, the ufasoft application also uses AMD CAL if it detects a Radeon GPU. But if the computer has a GeForce, will the miner know not to try to use the Nvidia GPU?

Thank you for the help!

[Xephan]

Nice, the ufasoft miner does work well, I'll certainly donate once I gather some coins.

One last question though, the ufasoft application also uses AMD CAL if it detects a Radeon GPU. But if the computer has a GeForce, will the miner know not to try to use the Nvidia GPU?

IIRC, you can pass ufasoft the "-g no" flag to stop it from using the GPU.