will we see network hashing power drop due to BF3 release?

[cablepair]

Just something silly I am curious about, BF3 is coming out tomorrow (I have been playing the cracked version today and it is UNREAL) do you think we will see drop in network speed due to collectively every other mining stopping mining with one of their GPU's and using it to play BF3? I currently took a 6870 out of mining to play this game and it is well worth the loss of 300 mhash!

any thoughts?

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[teflone]

Yes..

Next question..

wait.. cracked ?

Can you play it online cracked ?

Is PC version waaaay better than console version in terms of graphics.. ? or the same ?

[[Tycho]]

No.

But price drop can cause some hashrate decrease in next days.

[ElectricMucus]

A majority of the hashrate still comes from big miners with custom rigs, this might change in the future if the current outlook holds. Overall I think we are at the near end of the gpu mining cycle. The mining factor has been decreasing steadily with no end in sight and while some people might hold on for ideological reasons investing in new gpus would be a dumb thing to do right now.

I even think we might skip the 7XXX series cards altogether and go straight to fpgas, some people might fall for it but I doubt they will exit profitable.

[cablepair]

A majority of the hashrate still comes from big miners with custom rigs, this might change in the future if the current outlook holds. Overall I think we are at the near end of the gpu mining cycle. The mining factor has been decreasing steadily with no end in sight and while some people might hold on for ideological reasons investing in new gpus would be a dumb thing to do right now.

I even think we might skip the 7XXX series cards altogether and go straight to fpgas, some people might fall for it but I doubt they will exit profitable.

although I thank your response, and I must note I was not at all blaming hashrate decrease on the playing of BF3, I was really just trying to be funny and remark on how amazing of a game it is - really not a serious post at all - sorry.

But I do want to comment on your post, I am not sure what you mean by custom rig? every rig is a custom rig if you think about it, and I agree with you the days where people are going to invest in new gpu's for mining is gone unless of course we see a BTC value increase like we did when it went up to $30, thats what started the first one.

Also FPGA mining is a neat idea and is a much more energy efficient choice but again anyone that makes a major FPGA commitment is going to have to invest major cash into something that is not going to pay off well (unless the value goes up as my statement above)

[ElectricMucus]

A rig by my estimation is just something you buy specifically for bitcoin mining, so if you use your Desktop machine to mine you otherwise would have even without it it's not a rig, even when others call it that, I just don't

And fpga pricing isn't too far off the problem are the board and assembly costs which kill it, in theory 1MHash/USD can be achievable, we aren't there yet but people are pretty resourceful when it comes to that....

[hashman]

What the hell is BF3? 

[wigglyuk]

I will be playing on the xbox 360, so I shall be mining BTC as I'm play BF3... nothings sounds more satisfying right now.

[evoorhees]

What the hell is BF3? 

Best Friends III, followup to the smash hit Best Friends II - which was PC Gamer's Game of the Year in 2008

[infofront]

Out of the mining rigs I took offline, I made a pretty nice gaming computer. Just needed a processor. I'll be all over BF3 today!

[DeathAndTaxes]

But I do want to comment on your post, I am not sure what you mean by custom rig? every rig is a custom rig if you think about it, and I agree with you the days where people are going to invest in new gpu's for mining is gone unless of course we see a BTC value increase like we did when it went up to $30, thats what started the first one.

There are two methods to mine.  One is "casual mining".  Hey I like video games.  I got a high end rig.  I can mine when I am not using it and earn $30 to $60 per month.  All the hardware is dual use.

The other method is custom rigs. Rigs built to do mining and nothing else. USB sick, open frames (or cheap cases), sempron CPU, little ram, high end CPU, and as many GPU as you can cram in.  

"casual mining" has the advatange that the hardware is "free" (the game would own the hardware even without bitcoin).  Custom rigs hve the advantage of scalability.

Most miners started as "casual miners".  Some never moved past that.  However some miners (like myself) have and while less common the throughput of these hashing farms mean they produce a lot of hashing power in aggregate.

So something (anything) that affects dual-use systems (casual miners) will have absolutely no effect on a mining farm.

Also FPGA mining is a neat idea and is a much more energy efficient choice but again anyone that makes a major FPGA commitment is going to have to invest major cash into something that is not going to pay off well (unless the value goes up as my statement above)

The issue w/ FPGA isn't price but stability.  If I knew that adjusted for difficulty BTC would be >$2 in 4 years (i.e. difficulty / price <= 500,000) I would buy 20K worth of FPGA today.  With my electrical cost it would be an ROI of 35% annually if I averaged $2 per BTC (@1 mil difficulty).  Kinda hard to find 35% ROI that is scalable.  The issue isn't price but volatility.  If (adjusted for difficulty) over the next 4 years price of BTC averages $0.10 well I would lose a tons of cash.  That risk is hurting adoption of FPGA.  FGPA aren't going to make anyone 10,000% profit a year but thinking you can make 10,000% profit annually by leaving your computer running is foolish.  FPGA have the ability to produce REASONABLE profit if prices just stay level however that remains to be seen.  Unlike a GPU FPGA have little or no resale value so the capital risk is much higher.

FPGA miners don't need higher prices they need assurance that prices won't go significantly lower.

[DeathAndTaxes]

And fpga pricing isn't too far off the problem are the board and assembly costs which kill it, in theory 1MHash/USD can be achievable, we aren't there yet but people are pretty resourceful when it comes to that....

Most of FPGA mining cost comes from the FPGA.  The board is trivial to produce even in low quantities.  If anyone ever ramped it up to 10K units it would be an even smaller cost.  The bad news is that FPGA are expensive and supply is tightly controlled and that limits how "cheap" FPGA mining can get.

[ElectricMucus]

And fpga pricing isn't too far off the problem are the board and assembly costs which kill it, in theory 1MHash/USD can be achievable, we aren't there yet but people are pretty resourceful when it comes to that....

Most of FPGA mining cost comes from the FPGA.  The board is trivial to produce even in low quantities.  If anyone ever ramped it up to 10K units it would be an even smaller cost.  The bad news is that FPGA are expensive and supply is tightly controlled and that limits how "cheap" FPGA mining can get.

I know that, the theory was like this: Get a spartan-6 150klut for 170USD make a board for 20 usd and get 190mhash out of it, within the realm of possibility but very tight.

[DeathAndTaxes]

And fpga pricing isn't too far off the problem are the board and assembly costs which kill it, in theory 1MHash/USD can be achievable, we aren't there yet but people are pretty resourceful when it comes to that....

Most of FPGA mining cost comes from the FPGA.  The board is trivial to produce even in low quantities.  If anyone ever ramped it up to 10K units it would be an even smaller cost.  The bad news is that FPGA are expensive and supply is tightly controlled and that limits how "cheap" FPGA mining can get.

I know that, the theory was like this: Get a spartan-6 150klut for 170USD make a board for 20 usd and get 190mhash out of it, within the realm of possibility but very tight.

I gotcha.  Of course then there is the issue of yield, overhead, retail markup, etc.

[P4man]

FPGA miners don't need higher prices they need assurance that prices won't go significantly lower.

You said it more correctly higher up; the price doesnt matter, its the ratio price/difficulty. The risk of that imploding seems relatively small (particularly compared to the price of btc). I guess the question for potential FPGA miners is; do you expect bitcoin to still be around in 3+ years, and do you expect a majority of the hash rate providers to be unwilling to continue mining unprofitably (or have free electricity). If the answer to both questions is yes, then it makes sense to invest in FPGAs. There are of course still other risks, like the potential for future more efficient mining devices, but that seems like a small and acceptable risk to me. Im sure there will be improvements, but not likely gigantic break throughts.

To get back OT; hash rate is plummeting with or without BF3. It will continue to plummet until it catches up with the current price level. I dont think a few hours of playing per day on a single rig by a few miners is anything other than statistical noise in this regard.