ATTN Litecoin GPU Miners - Scrypt support for cgminer

[Graet]

A lot of people have wished for a better Litecoin GPU miner (I know I have).
After some discussion with cgminers developer (again )
"<conman> because I support bitcoin as a concept, although I can be paid to make ltc mining work but it would cost 100 BTC as a sponsored job"

With Litecoin's recent rally and the uncertainty for GPU miners around ASIC and BTC this could be a boon for LTC miners.

So who is up for it ?
I'll start by pledging 10BTC

If there is enough interest I will put up a wallet address for people to send BTCs for the bounty.


I'll put this here too
1RnULoG3fTcaHuXhnpDFTnuCTiNHLw1SM for those waiting for an addy


This is my "escrow wallet" and all funds will be forwarded to ckolivas at an appropriate time

currently 80 of the 100BTC has been sent or pledged

I'll put this here, look past this for more up to date info. I will try to update the original p[ost to make it easy to find

cgminer now has scrypt in main branch
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0
for latest version

[1713990618]

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[Graet]

1 guy already sent 20BTC direct to ckolivas

[pooler]

Would the new code become part of the main branch of cgminer or would it just be a separate fork? If the former (which I hope is the case), would scrypt support be included in official builds?
I'm asking this because I know that compiling cgminer on anything other than Linux can require some serious skills, and is definitely not something that everyone can do.

[dizzy1]

If it was part of the main branch, it would be easiest to make people run it with a flag like --litecoin-mode or something. Its the least intrusive suggestion I could come up with in 10 seconds.

[wknight]

I will put in 10 BTC. If anyone can do it.. conman can. Besides I need something to do with my GPU's if/when Asic does hit

[jjiimm_64]

I am in for 10 of course!!

[Graet]

thats 60BTC already

Pooler a flag on startup

[jjiimm_64]

thats 60BTC already

Pooler a flag on startup

or even include a seperate conf file altogether.  there are many different type of settings for mining ltc

[kano]

From a GPU point of view I suspect it would probably just be a --kernel option
(and the kernels would have to have extra info about verifying shares)
The extra scrypt GPU options may or may not be necessary - I'm sure he'd work that out.

Of course, as the README already says, and has said for a very long time, you wouldn't be able to mine 2 different coins in one cgminer instance.

The current reaper cl file will do >400KH/s on a 6950 mining solo using the linux code
I tried that a few weeks ago when that represented 6 blocks a day - I got 3 blocks in ~12 hours
Now I guess that would be 1 or 2 blocks a day.

When I tried that on a pool it dropped to a bit over 220KH/s
So yes the linux reaper code dealing with talking to a pool is ... well ... crap

The side effect of adding scrypt to cgminer GPU mining will certainly be to make CPU mining even more pointless on LTC.

[dizzy1]

From a GPU point of view I suspect it would probably just be a --kernel option
(and the kernels would have to have extra info about verifying shares)
The extra scrypt GPU options may or may not be necessary - I'm sure he'd work that out.

Of course, as the README already says, and has said for a very long time, you wouldn't be able to mine 2 different coins in one cgminer instance.

The current reaper cl file will do >400KH/s on a 6950 mining solo using the linux code
I tried that a few weeks ago when that represented 6 blocks a day - I got 3 blocks in ~12 hours
Now I guess that would be 1 or 2 blocks a day.

When I tried that on a pool it dropped to a bit over 220KH/s
So yes the linux reaper code dealing with talking to a pool is ... well ... crap

The side effect of adding scrypt to cgminer GPU mining will certainly be to make CPU mining even more pointless on LTC.

The specific part of the code that is crap is the logic for submitting shares. It stops a sharethread until it gets a response from the pool. To fix this you could
either rewrite the logic surrounding the threading (ie. just make a thread per piece of work when it is finished and leave it to itself) or you try increasing sharethreads.
Also try other pools, like ones that are close from a latency standpoint to you. But cgminer for litecoin would still be great.

[Greedi]

There is also donated some LTC to it, that can be find on the main page on http://wallet.liteco.in/

[smoothie]

Anyone know the timeline on this development?

1 week? 2 weeks?

Just curious...thanks!

 

[jjiimm_64]

Anyone know the timeline on this development?

1 week? 2 weeks?

Just curious...thanks!

 

well, when we get to 100btc, then conman will have to answer that, did you donate?

[smoothie]

Anyone know the timeline on this development?

1 week? 2 weeks?

Just curious...thanks!

 

well, when we get to 100btc, then conman will have to answer that, did you donate?

The question was in reference to once we get 100 btc and he starts...

[wknight]

Anyone know the timeline on this development?

1 week? 2 weeks?

Just curious...thanks!

 

well, when we get to 100btc, then conman will have to answer that, did you donate?

The question was in reference to once we get 100 btc and he starts...

Who cares.. at least some development is willing to be put into it.. conman is a man of his word.. he will work on it right away i am sure.

I know your selling a lot of stuff to promote litecoin.. but this is another way that brings money into litecoin.

[Tittiez]

conman is a man of his word..

 

[maaku]

@Graet, could you make a wallet for the bounty?

[smoothie]

Anyone know the timeline on this development?

1 week? 2 weeks?

Just curious...thanks!

 

well, when we get to 100btc, then conman will have to answer that, did you donate?

The question was in reference to once we get 100 btc and he starts...

Who cares.. at least some development is willing to be put into it.. conman is a man of his word.. he will work on it right away i am sure.

I know your selling a lot of stuff to promote litecoin.. but this is another way that brings money into litecoin.

And how does it bring money into litecoin? By making mining more efficient, how does that bring more money into litecoin...seriously draw me a picture. 

[Tittiez]

And how does it bring money into litecoin? By making mining more efficient, how does that bring more money into litecoin...seriously draw me a picture.  

1. Work on Litecoin with a large Bitcoin project makes people more secure about trying it (if you saw a large corp adopt a product wouldn't you feel better about it?) and opens it to people that didn't know about it before.
2. If mining is easier more people will adopt it and therefore it will grow. If more people adopt it there will be a larger demand for it.
3. If it crashes and burns in the future a more efficient miner means us early adopters get more litecoins, and that means we might end up getting rich at another bubble. (Doesn't really apply to your question, but its a major plus nonetheless)

[smoothie]

And how does it bring money into litecoin? By making mining more efficient, how does that bring more money into litecoin...seriously draw me a picture.  

1. Work on Litecoin with a large Bitcoin project makes people more secure about trying it (if you saw a large corp adopt a product wouldn't you feel better about it?) and opens it to people that didn't know about it before.
2. If mining is easier more people will adopt it and therefore it will grow. If more people adopt it there will be a larger demand for it.
3. If it crashes and burns in the future a more efficient miner means us early adopters get more litecoins, and that means we might end up getting rich at another bubble. (Doesn't really apply to your question, but its a major plus nonetheless)

Okay I'm convinced...thanks