PSA - Multi Algorithm GPU Mining

[Yeuph]

(This is a repost of something I just posted on Reddit in /r/GPUMining)

So I was hoping to initially use this idea to make a lot of money but I don't have the capabilities. I'll figure something else out. Someone reading this will be able to develop this idea better than I can (I can't) and maybe this is a half-step in the right direction towards fighting ASICs, restoring your profits or some other altruistic bullshit that is making me feel better about sharing this.

So, here goes.

I only started mining last fall. I didn't know shit about it and basically went with the easiest thing for me - Vertcoin 1 click. One of the things I read about setting up my 1070Tis was to turn the memory clock all the way down because some guy on Reddit said that "Lyra2Rev2 doesn't use the memory clock so turn it all the way down."

A few months ago I decided to buy a Vega 64 to play around with. I kept hearing that Vega was so good at XMR because of the HBM2. The thought occurred to me that perhaps different algorithms use different parts of the GPU. I immediately went to work playing around.

It did in fact work. I'm not sure what nomenclature I should use to describe my dual mining so I am just gonna wing it a bit, excuse me. After playing with Cast XMR and Vertcoin 1-click and the Radeon GPU settings I seemed to be able to get 80% XMR hashrate stable (1700h/sec) and ~65% Vertcoin stable at around 45mh/sec. I found that the power slider on Vega mattered *A LOT* here. Those were at stock power settings - so ya, profitability was down. At normal Vega XMR mining settings (-20% power) I think I was getting 1400 on XMR and 29 on Vertcoin - still something like 115% overall efficiency compared to global hashrates.

The bad news is that I couldn't get it to work with my 1070Tis. Maybe its the HMB2 or the memory controller (I'm a bricklayer, I have no idea what I'm talking about fyi) on Vega that lets it dual mine; regardless I had no success with my 1070s. I also couldn't get it stable (refer to me being a bricklayer). I think 20 hours was the longest it ran without crashing.

What I think needs to happen is someone makes this work better from a software angle - Someone needs to put out a mining program that natively supports mining dual algorithms that use different parts of the GPU. I could be wrong though and using something other than Vertcoin 1-click provides long-term stability. It does work and I want the community to play with this. Who knows what optimized software could yield. Perhaps 180% efficiency is on the table. I have only tested Vega 64 and 1070Tis on Ryzen platforms. I'm currently only mining XMR as dealing with a constantly crashing rig wasn't my cup of tea.

If anyone is feeling generous:

BTC: 1N5YKarvpSVQnfMppdk1UAb8UQpRbdoGrZ

XMR: 49cvRA3tqXAhK8vnurep6bNFp47idu3ouMdbbKH42qEpJUWABqqav5Chpsp8Av6hBAUrwqVoLDyWbLr UiNSsC97LUJfCSj6

Eth: 0x2c9a5e05f240fdff29739aee2706bfb1fb80f0a4

[1715001675]

1715001675

[1715001675]

1715001675

[1715001675]

1715001675

[Guvn0r]

Most mining softwares are heavily optomized already, they are also based on gpu. The best mining software as in a set it and forget it will be nicehash miner. They do benchmark initially and tune up each card for the best performance..180% performance is asking for 2x performance for the price of one, which is not very practical.

[Yeuph]

Most mining softwares are heavily optomized already, they are also based on gpu. The best mining software as in a set it and forget it will be nicehash miner. They do benchmark initially and tune up each card for the best performance..180% performance is asking for 2x performance for the price of one, which is not very practical.

You misunderstand.  Algorithms don't use 100% of the card.  Cryptonight is extremely memory dependent and Lyra2Rev2 is almost entirely dependent on the compute units.  Mining just 1 of those algorithms at a time is leaving half of your GPU unused.  I know for a fact that I can already get 145% efficiency compared to global hashrates.  I'm suggesting that someone optimizes software meant to dual mine complementary algorithms.

[swogerino]

Most mining softwares are heavily optomized already, they are also based on gpu. The best mining software as in a set it and forget it will be nicehash miner. They do benchmark initially and tune up each card for the best performance..180% performance is asking for 2x performance for the price of one, which is not very practical.

You misunderstand.  Algorithms don't use 100% of the card.  Cryptonight is extremely memory dependent and Lyra2Rev2 is almost entirely dependent on the compute units.  Mining just 1 of those algorithms at a time is leaving half of your GPU unused.  I know for a fact that I can already get 145% efficiency compared to global hashrates.  I'm suggesting that someone optimizes software meant to dual mine complementary algorithms.

A few other miners mainly the Nanox has popped up with a miner claiming the same, that it uses 100% GPU power to mine different from other mining software. If that is the case as I have not tried it yet, it is a welcome change as long as it is legit.

Still mining Cryptonight coins make us consume less energy and the card to heat at a low level, greatly extending the life of the card. With dual mine I am sure this will change to consume more power and to heat more shortening the life of the card.