Hardware compatibility

[evansste]

How flexible are most mining software programs?

I'm interested in the idea of bit mining and have learned that in order to make any money, I have to use a GPU instead of simply relying on the computer's CPU.  I have seen many different suggestions of which graphics adapters are good to use for this purpose.  However, how easy is it to get the software to work with the graphics adapter?  Are they all, pretty much compatible, or is it that only certain miners will work with certain graphics adapters?

I have a bunch of old computers that have PCI slots, not PCI-express.  I know that it's possible to buy PCI-to-PCIe converters.  Could I simply buy one of the popular graphics adapters, like an AMD Radeon HD 7950, use a PCI-to-PCIe adapter, and use whatever mining software I choose?

I was planning on using this setup with eobot.com.  However, I once tried using a standard, cheaper graphics adapter, like a GeForce 6200 graphics card by nVidia.  When I tried to use it for mining, the program said that I needed an openCL driver.  When I went to the nVidia site, they didn't have one for that card.  I'm guessing this is because the card is a low-end, cheaper card.  But if I bought a better one, like the AMD Radeon HD 7950, am I still likely to run into issues like this?  Or is it that such a popular card will be easily compatible with most mining programs?

I'm really new to mining, and I don't want to buy a card online, just to find out that I have to send it back because only certain mining programs will work with certain cards.

Thanks for your time. 

[KWH]

How flexible are most mining software programs?

I'm interested in the idea of bit mining and have learned that in order to make any money, I have to use a GPU instead of simply relying on the computer's CPU.  I have seen many different suggestions of which graphics adapters are good to use for this purpose.  However, how easy is it to get the software to work with the graphics adapter?  Are they all, pretty much compatible, or is it that only certain miners will work with certain graphics adapters?

I have a bunch of old computers that have PCI slots, not PCI-express.  I know that it's possible to buy PCI-to-PCIe converters.  Could I simply buy one of the popular graphics adapters, like an AMD Radeon HD 7950, use a PCI-to-PCIe adapter, and use whatever mining software I choose?

I was planning on using this setup with eobot.com.  However, I once tried using a standard, cheaper graphics adapter, like a GeForce 6200 graphics card by nVidia.  When I tried to use it for mining, the program said that I needed an openCL driver.  When I went to the nVidia site, they didn't have one for that card.  I'm guessing this is because the card is a low-end, cheaper card.  But if I bought a better one, like the AMD Radeon HD 7950, am I still likely to run into issues like this?  Or is it that such a popular card will be easily compatible with most mining programs?

I'm really new to mining, and I don't want to buy a card online, just to find out that I have to send it back because only certain mining programs will work with certain cards.

Thanks for your time. 

GPU mining has been dead for a long time, need to do more reading (see CURRENT articles) before blowing any money.

[evansste]

Thanks, KWH, for your response.

After reading your response, I looked at the "hardware" forum section for mining, on this site, in order to find out what hardware people are using if they're not using GPUs.  It all seemed a bit depressing, if I am to be honest.  It seems as if the whole concept of mining is doomed to become obsolete because in order to be profitable, one must keep buying new hardware.  I figured that finding lower electricity costs would be the main thing to worry about.  However, it almost seems that even if a person were able to have free electricity, not a lot of money could be made because it will just get harder and harder to mine enough profit to cover the initial cost of the hardware.  Am I right?  This gives me a lot to think about.

Thanks for your advice and honesty.  The funny thing about finding "current" articles is that if you do an internet search for bitcoin mining, good luck finding a "current" article because, as you have pointed out, fewer and fewer people are doing it.  Therefore, any article that I find concerning ways to do it, are bound to be relatively old, and they talk about using GPUs.  Not many people write about what people used to do, they focus on what people are doing now.  And if you don't already know what people are doing now, and what the new thing is called, how do you know what to search for?

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.  A look at the "hardware" forum was a big help.   

[serje]

Well at the moment it might seem unprofitable to mine, but if you do it in the long run(5-10 years) then I guess you should not have anything to worry about!

Just imagine if you mine now something like 0.1BTC in 2 months they are now around 65$ but if in 10 years the price will be 30000$ then that 0.1BTC will be about 3000$

It all depends on what you think about BTC! If you want to mine to make an extra fast dollar then it is pretty hard to do it right now.

If you have let's say 5000$ that you want to invest and you don't mind the possibility that you can lose them all then go all in!

I personally think the price will rise when people will start to value their privacy enough!

It's just like the situation with blackberry... a few years ago when in London were some riots a lot of protesters were busted before even doing anything because they organised on facebook,twitter... the police asked facebook and twitter to send them all the details about the protesters and they did it before the protesters even had a change of doing anything, after that some smart guys thought that they should organise next riot on blackberry messenger and police couldn't intercept that because it's a free service that is crypted, they even asked Blackberry to offer them access at their servers and blackberry said no!

The situation is the same with this one:
You are sick and then you go to the pharmacy to buy some drugs to get better and you use your credit card, you take then and then you are feeling fine! After 3 months your life insurance expires and you got to make a new one and they ask you 3 times the old rate and are paying you half of what they did before! Why? Because they know you were sick! Because insurance companies buy account extras from the banks to be sure they will have a profit! When people will realise that with BTC they will have some sort of privacy the price will increase drastically!

But until then the price will go up and down and so on! I personally think that in 10 years the price will be around 50.000$, not because people will value their privacy in 10 years from now but because it will be used for a lot more stuff then now!

When will people start to value their privacy? This is hard to predict, but if you can mine now and you start to mine now think like this, I'm not doing it for me, I'm doing it for my grand-grand sons!

Because 3-4 generations from now will have a no worry life with 0.0001BTC!

Oh and for the hardware always use AMD because it's better than nVidia at mining!

[evansste]

Thanks, serje, for your advice.  I'll admit that mining is still appealing. 

Because it sounds as if you're a miner, I pose the question that I asked before about compatibility.  How compatible are the different softwares with the different hardwares?

I recognize that you suggest that AMD produces better graphics cards than nVidia.  For this reason, if I choose to buy graphics cards for mining purposes, they'll certainly be AMD.  However, the cards that I already own are nVidia cards, and they're not top-of-the-line.  When I tried to use one of them with Eobot, it said that I needed an openCL driver, which nVidia doesn't provide for the cards that I have.  Will this be the general case with all mining software, or is Eobot so unpopular that it's out-of-the-norm?  Could I mine with the standard cards that I have, (though it wouldn't be very efficient) or are there only certain cards that will work with certain software?  Or is it that there is no software out there that will let me use a GeForce 6200 graphics card by nVidia?

My first guess is that most mining software would support the most popular GPU cards, like the AMD Radeon HD 7950.  Would I be right about that?

If I do choose to use GPUs, I don't want to run into compatibility issues with the software.  I'd hate to buy a bunch of graphics adapters just to find out that I can't use them because I can't find the right software to mine with them.  For this reason, I'm thinking about compatibility.  Is it just a matter of buying the most popular cards, like the AMD Radeon HD 7950, which will then work with nearly all of the software?

If mining is becoming less popular, then I have a harder time buying new top-of-the-line hardware that will be obsolete in a year, rather than simply using hardware that I already have, or older stuff that costs next-to-nothing to buy.  But compatibility is important because if I can't find software that will work with what I have, then all of the hardware is worthless for this purpose, and it may make sense to abandon the whole idea.

Thanks again, for any input that anyone is willing to provide.

[serje]

Well I downloaded eobot but something seems catchy!
It seems they pay too much to be true!
I would make less mining in a pool or in a p2pool!

As for what you are saying about the openCL driver what I've learned is that AMD requires AMD SDK(software developer kit), and it can be downloaded from AMD website!

I could try eobot in the morning on my work PC because there I have AMD video cards! At home I have nVidia!

Will let you know in the morning how it went!

[eshragr]

Thanks, serje, for your advice.  I'll admit that mining is still appealing. 

Because it sounds as if you're a miner, I pose the question that I asked before about compatibility.  How compatible are the different softwares with the different hardwares?

I recognize that you suggest that AMD produces better graphics cards than nVidia.  For this reason, if I choose to buy graphics cards for mining purposes, they'll certainly be AMD.  However, the cards that I already own are nVidia cards, and they're not top-of-the-line.  When I tried to use one of them with Eobot, it said that I needed an openCL driver, which nVidia doesn't provide for the cards that I have.  Will this be the general case with all mining software, or is Eobot so unpopular that it's out-of-the-norm?  Could I mine with the standard cards that I have, (though it wouldn't be very efficient) or are there only certain cards that will work with certain software?  Or is it that there is no software out there that will let me use a GeForce 6200 graphics card by nVidia?

My first guess is that most mining software would support the most popular GPU cards, like the AMD Radeon HD 7950.  Would I be right about that?

If I do choose to use GPUs, I don't want to run into compatibility issues with the software.  I'd hate to buy a bunch of graphics adapters just to find out that I can't use them because I can't find the right software to mine with them.  For this reason, I'm thinking about compatibility.  Is it just a matter of buying the most popular cards, like the AMD Radeon HD 7950, which will then work with nearly all of the software?

If mining is becoming less popular, then I have a harder time buying new top-of-the-line hardware that will be obsolete in a year, rather than simply using hardware that I already have, or older stuff that costs next-to-nothing to buy.  But compatibility is important because if I can't find software that will work with what I have, then all of the hardware is worthless for this purpose, and it may make sense to abandon the whole idea.

Thanks again, for any input that anyone is willing to provide.

+

[notlist3d]

Thanks, KWH, for your response.

After reading your response, I looked at the "hardware" forum section for mining, on this site, in order to find out what hardware people are using if they're not using GPUs.  It all seemed a bit depressing, if I am to be honest.  It seems as if the whole concept of mining is doomed to become obsolete because in order to be profitable, one must keep buying new hardware.  I figured that finding lower electricity costs would be the main thing to worry about.  However, it almost seems that even if a person were able to have free electricity, not a lot of money could be made because it will just get harder and harder to mine enough profit to cover the initial cost of the hardware.  Am I right?  This gives me a lot to think about.

Thanks for your advice and honesty.  The funny thing about finding "current" articles is that if you do an internet search for bitcoin mining, good luck finding a "current" article because, as you have pointed out, fewer and fewer people are doing it.  Therefore, any article that I find concerning ways to do it, are bound to be relatively old, and they talk about using GPUs.  Not many people write about what people used to do, they focus on what people are doing now.  And if you don't already know what people are doing now, and what the new thing is called, how do you know what to search for?

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.  A look at the "hardware" forum was a big help.   

Lower electricity is always great.  Sadly GPU mining there are some out there doing but for most including myself It's not worth it.  Before buying any equipment decide of a ROI time-frame.  If you have cheap electricity this will help.  I personally don't suggest GPU's for most. 

As far as mining there are two main choices Scrypt or straight bitcoin for most part.  If you are looking into scrypt you might take a look at the new SF-28 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=650608.msg .  If you compare the watts it uses compared to amount of GPU's to get the same it will show why I suggest asic.  But GPU ofcourse will be mining a different kind of Scrypt.

As far as the day's of using computer with no investment it has passed. Just make sure to do some math and decide best option for you.