Gridcoin (GRC) - first coin utilizing BOINC - Official Thread

[andrewp]

Hi Andrew--

Yeah, I think I introduced that crash when we adding the charting boinc historical avg_credits using the background thread, and Ive been trying to find that - actively.  I think we finally fixed it by charting on the main thread and fixing the "red X" that would occasionally appear on the chart; all 4 of my machines have been up for 30 hours now, so I am hoping that problem is behind us.

Regarding the beacon, I see you in position #2.  Glad we were able to move the project along to this point.  What are your total credits for that project?  Ill look into what our next step is in enabling pool2; but not sure how long that is going to take.  

Rob H.

Hi Rob,

Yes it works perfectly for me too since then.
Total credits for Malaria I have right now are 8884..not a lot, but it will definitely grow

Also I see that all your machines have different Project IDs so there are basically two options how to CPU mine:
1. Every machine that a user puts into CPU mining on a particular project can have its own BOINC account for that project(=different Project ID) and even if the user name(GRC address) will be same for all, the system will treat each machine as a new cpu miner instance in "listcpuminers" and BOINC credits/rewards etc. will be calculated for each one separately.
2. However if every machine that the users has CPU mining would have the same BOINC Project ID(only one account for all) then the BOINC credits will be summed up and ''listcpuminers'' will see this as a 1 miner.

Is that correct? Which solution would then be better for coin rewards?
Am I right in thinking that at the moment it is better to have the machines on separate Project IDs because the BOINC credits don't play that big of a role now, however in the future when there are a lot of miners the BOINC credits will play increasingly important role and it might be more efficient to have the machines on one Project ID to earn as much BOINC credits as possible?

Regards,
Andrew.

[1714919356]

1714919356

[Gridcoin]

Hi Andrew--

Yeah, I think I introduced that crash when we adding the charting boinc historical avg_credits using the background thread, and Ive been trying to find that - actively.  I think we finally fixed it by charting on the main thread and fixing the "red X" that would occasionally appear on the chart; all 4 of my machines have been up for 30 hours now, so I am hoping that problem is behind us.

Regarding the beacon, I see you in position #2.  Glad we were able to move the project along to this point.  What are your total credits for that project?  Ill look into what our next step is in enabling pool2; but not sure how long that is going to take.  

Rob H.

Hi Rob,

Yes it works perfectly for me too since then.
Total credits for Malaria I have right now are 8884..not a lot, but it will definitely grow

Also I see that all your machines have different Project IDs so there are basically two options how to CPU mine:
1. Every machine that a user puts into CPU mining on a particular project can have its own BOINC account for that project(=different Project ID) and even if the user name(GRC address) will be same for all, the system will treat each machine as a new cpu miner instance in "listcpuminers" and BOINC credits/rewards etc. will be calculated for each one separately.
2. However if every machine that the users has CPU mining would have the same BOINC Project ID(only one account for all) then the BOINC credits will be summed up and ''listcpuminers'' will see this as a 1 miner.

Is that correct? Which solution would then be better for coin rewards?
Am I right in thinking that at the moment it is better to have the machines on separate Project IDs because the BOINC credits don't play that big of a role now, however in the future when there are a lot of miners the BOINC credits will play increasingly important role and it might be more efficient to have the machines on one Project ID to earn as much BOINC credits as possible?

Regards,
Andrew.

Hi -- I realize it's a little convoluted, since we have a separate set of rules for cpuminers vs gpuminers. 

The Cpuminers payout structure is based 100% on the daily avg credits per boinc project summed, so if you have 1000 today for Malaria + 500 today for RNA, your pool2 entry for the day would be 1500 boinc shares for your single GRC address.  If you try to exploit that by opening up multiple GRC addresses your credits will go down on each account so you wont make any extra money.  Anyway, the reason the top of the listcpuminers report breaks out the credits by project is so the GPU miner can check those individually.  What happens is the GPU miners go down the list in the top section of the report and verify the credits (5 entries are in the report; so 5 checks are made by the gpu miner).  However, part II of the report consolidates the credits by GRC receiving address.  The user should technically be paid based on the outstanding owed for the day minus any previous payments by the pool when the next GPU user finds a block, over time.  We should add a section for the actual mechanics of the payout structure, ie how the shares affect the daily reward.

On a high level the original idea was to pay up to 576 cpu-only miners 150grc per day but using an RBPPS to arrive at a payment per miner based on their boincshares.  The max payment per day per receiving address is 150grc.  When more than 576 cpu-users participate, the pool total stays @ 576*150 (total), now divided by all participants  * RBPPS (boincshares per user).

We may have to start off with a smaller reward while we test this, more on that later after I check to see how we can even enable Pool2.

Thanks for writing the manual!

Have a good one,
Rob H.

[traderman]

Man GPU mining seems to be so much easier. LOL

Hi Andrew--

Yeah, I think I introduced that crash when we adding the charting boinc historical avg_credits using the background thread, and Ive been trying to find that - actively.  I think we finally fixed it by charting on the main thread and fixing the "red X" that would occasionally appear on the chart; all 4 of my machines have been up for 30 hours now, so I am hoping that problem is behind us.

Regarding the beacon, I see you in position #2.  Glad we were able to move the project along to this point.  What are your total credits for that project?  Ill look into what our next step is in enabling pool2; but not sure how long that is going to take.  

Rob H.

Hi Rob,

Yes it works perfectly for me too since then.
Total credits for Malaria I have right now are 8884..not a lot, but it will definitely grow

Also I see that all your machines have different Project IDs so there are basically two options how to CPU mine:
1. Every machine that a user puts into CPU mining on a particular project can have its own BOINC account for that project(=different Project ID) and even if the user name(GRC address) will be same for all, the system will treat each machine as a new cpu miner instance in "listcpuminers" and BOINC credits/rewards etc. will be calculated for each one separately.
2. However if every machine that the users has CPU mining would have the same BOINC Project ID(only one account for all) then the BOINC credits will be summed up and ''listcpuminers'' will see this as a 1 miner.

Is that correct? Which solution would then be better for coin rewards?
Am I right in thinking that at the moment it is better to have the machines on separate Project IDs because the BOINC credits don't play that big of a role now, however in the future when there are a lot of miners the BOINC credits will play increasingly important role and it might be more efficient to have the machines on one Project ID to earn as much BOINC credits as possible?

Regards,
Andrew.

Hi -- I realize it's a little convoluted, since we have a separate set of rules for cpuminers vs gpuminers. 

The Cpuminers payout structure is based 100% on the daily avg credits per boinc project summed, so if you have 1000 today for Malaria + 500 today for RNA, your pool2 entry for the day would be 1500 boinc shares for your single GRC address.  If you try to exploit that by opening up multiple GRC addresses your credits will go down on each account so you wont make any extra money.  Anyway, the reason the top of the listcpuminers report breaks out the credits by project is so the GPU miner can check those individually.  What happens is the GPU miners go down the list in the top section of the report and verify the credits (5 entries are in the report; so 5 checks are made by the gpu miner).  However, part II of the report consolidates the credits by GRC receiving address.  The user should technically be paid based on the outstanding owed for the day minus any previous payments by the pool when the next GPU user finds a block, over time.  We should add a section for the actual mechanics of the payout structure, ie how the shares affect the daily reward.

On a high level the original idea was to pay up to 576 cpu-only miners 150grc per day but using an RBPPS to arrive at a payment per miner based on their boincshares.  The max payment per day per receiving address is 150grc.  When more than 576 cpu-users participate, the pool total stays @ 576*150 (total), now divided by all participants  * RBPPS (boincshares per user).

We may have to start off with a smaller reward while we test this, more on that later after I check to see how we can even enable Pool2.

Thanks for writing the manual!

Have a good one,
Rob H.

[andrewp]

Hi -- I realize it's a little convoluted, since we have a separate set of rules for cpuminers vs gpuminers. 

The Cpuminers payout structure is based 100% on the daily avg credits per boinc project summed, so if you have 1000 today for Malaria + 500 today for RNA, your pool2 entry for the day would be 1500 boinc shares for your single GRC address.  If you try to exploit that by opening up multiple GRC addresses your credits will go down on each account so you wont make any extra money.  Anyway, the reason the top of the listcpuminers report breaks out the credits by project is so the GPU miner can check those individually.  What happens is the GPU miners go down the list in the top section of the report and verify the credits (5 entries are in the report; so 5 checks are made by the gpu miner).  However, part II of the report consolidates the credits by GRC receiving address.  The user should technically be paid based on the outstanding owed for the day minus any previous payments by the pool when the next GPU user finds a block, over time.  We should add a section for the actual mechanics of the payout structure, ie how the shares affect the daily reward.

On a high level the original idea was to pay up to 576 cpu-only miners 150grc per day but using an RBPPS to arrive at a payment per miner based on their boincshares.  The max payment per day per receiving address is 150grc.  When more than 576 cpu-users participate, the pool total stays @ 576*150 (total), now divided by all participants  * RBPPS (boincshares per user).

We may have to start off with a smaller reward while we test this, more on that later after I check to see how we can even enable Pool2.

Thanks for writing the manual!

Have a good one,
Rob H.

Hi,

Thanks for clearing everything out. I'm just trying to understand how it all works.
The CPU mining and payout systems actually make perfect sense when you explain it.

Right, so if #of users < 576 then max payout per address=150, meaning if somone wants to generate more money, they would need to have different GRC address on each machine...however when #users > 576 and the Pool2 coin cap is reached(576*150) then it will be switched to the 576*150/#users*RBPPS formula and the same user would need to switch all machines to one address in order to generate as much BOINC credits as possible because their GRC payout will be mainly dependant on them.
Basically in the end, both of these approaches will generate the same amout of work for BOINC which is very good..the only difference will be in the payout for the early miners.

Also regarding the beacon etc.:
1. The beacon for one address needs to really be sent out only once so the system recognizes the miner, right? If I would shutdown the pc and start mining again tomorrow I wouldn't need to wait for another beacon before I'm listed..is it a sort of a registration, like when miners with GPUs first need to mine their own block before they are listed?
2. In order to keep CPU mining, there have to be running BOINC + Wallet + Mining Console on the machine..or is it just BOINC+Wallet? Guiminer can be shut down?

Not a problem, I'd like to help and not just ask questions
Thanks, you too,
Andrew.

[andrewp]

Man GPU mining seems to be so much easier. LOL

As Rob said, it is a new feature.. I'm sure in the end it will be even easier to set up than GPU mining.
I finally have the setup for my rig, however the cards I want to buy are hopelessly sold out...so I will have to wait for 2 weeks before they arrive.
That's why I'm eager to start CPU mining

Andrew.

[traderman]

Lately I was looking on amazon and ebay and to my surpirse there was not much available in terms of GPUs.

Man GPU mining seems to be so much easier. LOL

As Rob said, it is a new feature.. I'm sure in the end it will be even easier to set up than GPU mining.
I finally have the setup for my rig, however the cards I want to buy are hopelessly sold out...so I will have to wait for 2 weeks before they arrive.
That's why I'm eager to start CPU mining

Andrew.

[andrewp]

Lately I was looking on amazon and ebay and to my surpirse there was not much available in terms of GPUs.

Exactly.
Although NVIDIA cards are available without a problem. Which is great, but not for mining.

Andrew.

[thenoblebot]

Can you help me a bit Andrew ? Rob doesn't seem to be answering for now,

Hi Rob,

Ok just as I was writing a similar amount of credit appeared back into the wallet. Not sure if its the same. When I click on "Transactions" in the wallet it shows a big red square on the column to the left of "Date" column. Upon right clicking "Show transaction details" in the wallet it says -

"status: 0/offline, has not been successfully broadcast yet" and
"From: unknown" (along with transaction details.)

So something I am confused about is that - isn't the GRC to be credited with a minimum of 5 (+ depending on BOINC utilization ) ? I suppose the GRC I have are not there due to finding a block. Am I correct ? And if I am correct then it has already been more than a day easily since the miner has been running and no GRC yet ... is this normal (how long does it take?) ?

Also, one of the projects I have running is SETI , however it does not show up in the "Project Console" so that I can link my user id for the same(SETI) as you directed before.

[WillBit]

Where can I buy Gridcoin at?

[thenoblebot]

Hi WillBit,

Where can I buy Gridcoin at?

There is no marketplace yet ... will be added in the future (soon I hope).

[Inrideo]

Hey all,

I found gridcoin tonight, after having talked about this very need for a boinc coin last week with a buddy Yay!

I just set poolmining to true, and restarted the wallet while cudaminer worked in the background.
What happens to the work done over the last few hours? Does it get tossed?

Been reading the whole thread while waiting for my newbie status to pass. Lots of great info.

Now I have a question for the devs Is it possible to buy gridcoins directly from the devs to support things like the logo art, website design, beer and pizza?

I have $50 with your names on it   

[WillBit]

I've been trading crypto currencies for 1.5 years now.  This is the first currency I've been excited enough about to download and sync the client.  Love the Gridcoin concept!

FteJtaUYYs34nz5ueT1pFW83nQo9C4KV25


I'm definitely interested in purchasing a large amount with Bitcoin.

Thanks!

[andrewp]

Can you help me a bit Andrew ? Rob doesn't seem to be answering for now,

Hi Rob,

Ok just as I was writing a similar amount of credit appeared back into the wallet. Not sure if its the same. When I click on "Transactions" in the wallet it shows a big red square on the column to the left of "Date" column. Upon right clicking "Show transaction details" in the wallet it says -

"status: 0/offline, has not been successfully broadcast yet" and
"From: unknown" (along with transaction details.)

So something I am confused about is that - isn't the GRC to be credited with a minimum of 5 (+ depending on BOINC utilization ) ? I suppose the GRC I have are not there due to finding a block. Am I correct ? And if I am correct then it has already been more than a day easily since the miner has been running and no GRC yet ... is this normal (how long does it take?) ?

Also, one of the projects I have running is SETI , however it does not show up in the "Project Console" so that I can link my user id for the same(SETI) as you directed before.

Hi thenoblebot,

I'm not sure about the transactions part from your post.

However, regarding the projects..for CPU mining you need to be registered and have BOINC running at least one of the projects that are listed in "BOINC Projects" in your wallet. Do following:
1. Choose a project from "BOINC Projects" add it to your BOINC manager and set its username on the project website to your GRC receiving address.
2. In your Wallet set that same receiving addresses name to "Default".
3. Go to "BOINC Projects" in your wallet, find the project you added and fill in your "User ID" that can be found in your account settings on that projects website. Press save. After a while if you press "Query Credits" it will change to show the actual number of avg. daily credits you did for that project.

Now you should be CPU mining. The last thing that you need to wait for is sending a beacon.. As Rob said, 1-2 times a day a small payment will be automatically sent from your wallet(~0.05GRC) and after that has been sent and recognized by the GPU miners(~15-20mins) you will now be recognized by the system..If you go to the "Debug Console" and write "listcpuminers" you should now be listed.(look for your address).

Hope this helps.
Andrew.

[thenoblebot]

Hi Andrew,
Really really appreciate your time and reply. Regarding the points you have made

1. Choose a project from "BOINC Projects" add it to your BOINC manager and set its username on the project website to your GRC receiving address.

I have 4 out of the 5 projects running. Infact I had SETI too but I removed it since it wasn't in the list. I am being shows credits for the Malaria, RNA, ROsetta and Milkyway projects. However they are all less than 30. Is this normal ? Also for the project that I have not attached to BOINC (namely.. Docker) it is showing a "-11". Is that a problem or is it normal to show that for projects not attached ? Also in BOINC Manager under "Tasks"-> "Name" it shows the name of the task right ? or should that too be my recieving address (I think it should be the name of the task but just asking to make sure)?

2. In your Wallet set that same receiving addresses name to "Default".

Done that. My "gridcoin.conf" also shows projects listed. Have attached images below.Would you be kind enough to have a look once and tell me if something is wrong ?

3. Go to "BOINC Projects" in your wallet, find the project you added and fill in your "User ID" that can be found in your account settings on that projects website. Press save. After a while if you press "Query Credits" it will change to show the actual number of avg. daily credits you did for that project.

Done that too. See images below please if its correct, would be very helpful of you.

http://imgur.com/d23fYmR,RxzYzui,cAyVmb6,UCcbwuw,COUYJiJ#0

The last thing that you need to wait for is sending a beacon.. As Rob said, 1-2 times a day a small payment will be automatically sent from your wallet(~0.05GRC) and after that has been sent and recognized by the GPU miners(~15-20mins) you will now be recognized by the system..If you go to the "Debug Console" and write "listcpuminers" you should now be listed.(look for your address).

Do you mean the payment will be made "from"(outgoing payment from me) my wallet or "to"(me recieving payment) my wallet ? Because I have recieved another small payment of 0.00000267 GRC. AFAIK its not related to CPU mining. I am almost sure I have everything correct. Another question is that do you receive some error when opening gridcoin-qt ? Because I always get a message asking to check "guiminerl.exe.log" and that shows a "pyopencl" dll load failed error. So I have to manually start it. And then it says - nothing to mine .. in a command prompt window and then the window closes. However, when I click "TestCPUMiner" in the mining console then it gives me a result in an alert box. Is this ok ? Because I still cant see my address with the command "listcpuminers" from the debug window and my machine has been running for the past 2 days (with all the adjustments that you have asked me to do probably 6-8 hours).

Can you let me know your opinion on this ? And once again I thoroughly appreciate your help mate. Feels good to be shown some direction when I was almost on the verge of giving up. So thank you again Andrew.

Regards

[INSeed]

However, regarding the projects..for CPU mining you need to be registered and have BOINC running at least one of the projects that are listed in "BOINC Projects" in your wallet. Do following:
1. Choose a project from "BOINC Projects" add it to your BOINC manager and set its username on the project website to your GRC receiving address.
2. In your Wallet set that same receiving addresses name to "Default".
3. Go to "BOINC Projects" in your wallet, find the project you added and fill in your "User ID" that can be found in your account settings on that projects website. Press save. After a while if you press "Query Credits" it will change to show the actual number of avg. daily credits you did for that project.

Now you should be CPU mining. The last thing that you need to wait for is sending a beacon.. As Rob said, 1-2 times a day a small payment will be automatically sent from your wallet(~0.05GRC) and after that has been sent and recognized by the GPU miners(~15-20mins) you will now be recognized by the system..If you go to the "Debug Console" and write "listcpuminers" you should now be listed.(look for your address).

Hope this helps.
Andrew.

I registered to projects on Boincstats to have only one account for multiple projects, where do I find the "User ID" to add in the wallet "BOINC Projects" tab ?

[traderman]

Same here, definitely one of the most innovative and unique concepts with a great development team.

I've been trading crypto currencies for 1.5 years now.  This is the first currency I've been excited enough about to download and sync the client.  Love the Gridcoin concept!

FteJtaUYYs34nz5ueT1pFW83nQo9C4KV25


I'm definitely interested in purchasing a large amount with Bitcoin.

Thanks!

[thenoblebot]

Hi Andrew and Gridcoin,

Just an update. I tried installing the same thing on a fresh install of windows 7. Ultimately it comes down to the log file of guiminer. I think that is the root of the problem. Here is a screen shot of what happens. http://imgur.com/RYQMm4x,MC8wQsf (along with that are the tiny transactions I was referring to).

I have done everything you guys have asked. Almost on the verge of giving up now after trying it multiple times on different machines.

Andrew - if you can tell me the process you followed to get the cpu miner to work then it would be great. You have been of great help thanks a lot again.

Gridcoin - I have given this 3 days now, I don't think I will be able to devote more time (maybe another day to try), in spite of the fact that I would love to be a part of this project (but cant ignore electricity costs too if one does not get mining rewards). Still wish you guys the best. I have provided screenshot of where the problem lies. Hope it can be resolved for the benefit of others trying to join the project.

Update : According to this post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63699.msg747636#msg747636 guiminer has problems with pyopencl, something that I have previously highlighted here. Hope someone can explain that too.

[traderman]

Instead of wasting time with this, just run your GPU, much easier and much faster and more profitable.

Hi Andrew and Gridcoin,

Just an update. I tried installing the same thing on a fresh install of windows 7. Ultimately it comes down to the log file of guiminer. I think that is the root of the problem. Here is a screen shot of what happens. http://imgur.com/RYQMm4x,MC8wQsf (along with that are the tiny transactions I was referring to).

I have done everything you guys have asked. Almost on the verge of giving up now after trying it multiple times on different machines.

Andrew - if you can tell me the process you followed to get the cpu miner to work then it would be great. You have been of great help thanks a lot again.

Gridcoin - I have given this 3 days now, I don't think I will be able to devote more time (maybe another day to try), in spite of the fact that I would love to be a part of this project (but cant ignore electricity costs too if one does not get mining rewards). Still wish you guys the best. I have provided screenshot of where the problem lies. Hope it can be resolved for the benefit of others trying to join the project.

Update : According to this post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63699.msg747636#msg747636 guiminer has problems with pyopencl, something that I have previously highlighted here. Hope someone can explain that too.

[thenoblebot]

Instead of wasting time with this, just run your GPU, much easier and much faster and more profitable.

Hi traderman,

Currently I don't have a GPU. Any recommendations on which one I should get ? I was trying to cpu mine because I have a couple of old laptops which I could put to use with this. Any suggestion on guides to building a GPU mining rig (I am new to this) ? Preferably the best hashes/power ratio.
I happened to look at the litecoin hardware comparison and 7990 sapphire seems good but does it need watercooling ? (sorry I am really new to mining but I am prepared to make the investment).
Also when you say faster and more profitable - any idea how much more profitable it is to GPU mine than only CPU mine ?

I have an ASUS p5G41t-M motherboard and hardly know anything about the hardware requirements .. any pointers would be more than welcome. In fact I would be really thankful if someone could point me in the right direction.

[Inrideo]

Hmmm. I must be doing something wrong. I'm set up for the pool. I'm seeing it process, but my has rate in the mining console is 0 and I've seen no progress in collecting coins.

Using cudaminer. Anyone else?

Adding a screenshot of the current output:



Weird. Not working. Image is at http://mootations.info/gallery/gridcoin.png