lolMiner 1.02

lolMiner 1.02

Changes (from lolMiner 1.01)

• Disabled Beam Hash III auto switcher. --coin BEAM now pointing to --algo BEAM-III - this should resolve some config problems
• Fixed a bug that made the miner not starting BEAM-III on RX 550 4G GPUs
• Fixed a bug that made the miner not start mining Cortex
• Fixed a bug with Beam Hash I 3G solver (miners did not find it)
• Fixed a bug not writing a log file when --log on was given
• Fixed a bug with parameter --digits (was missing in 1.0 and 1.01)
• Re-Enabled parameter --port, but with a big red deprecation warning. Will resolve some 1.0 config problems

lolMiner 1.01

lolMiner 1.01

Changes (from lolMiner 1.0)

• Improved performance of Beam Hash III on all 6G+ cards (by about 4-5%)
• Added 3G* / 4G solver for Beam Hash III
  (* will not work in Windows 10 and some older AMD cards)
• Fixed an issue with mining Beam Hash III to NiceHash
• --tls now allowed to be used multiple times to configure it for each pool separately
• If found the miner will now load the user_config.json file per default again (fixes issues with minerstat)
• Fixed temperature and power monitoring for VII and Navi on Windows 10 (Fan speed may still be broken ... work in progress)

Expected Performance (Beam Hash III, 3/4G solver)

RX 560 4G: 5 sol/s
RX 580 4G: 11.5 sol/s
GTX 1060 3G: 7.75 sol/s

lolMiner 1.0

lolMiner 1.0

Changes (from lolMiner 0.98)

• lolMiner got a restructure how to configure it and also features a 2nd, more simple config file format.
  Use lolMiner -h to get a list of new supported parameters or visit the new online manual
• Added optimizes solvers for Beam Hash III for AMD & Nvidia cards. Use --coin BEAM to auto switch from BeamHash II to BeamHash III on fork (approx June 28th, requires 8G card) or select Beam Hash III solver manually with --algo BEAM-III (requires 6G card)
• Added performance improved (+ >10%) GRIN-C29M solver for 8G GPUs
• Added Cuckaroo-30 solver to mine Cortex Ai (--coin CTXC or --algo C30CTX) for all 8G and higher GPUs
• Added support for non-integer difficulty on Grin
• Reactivated support for Beam Hash I including support for personalization strings.
• AMD Navi does now work on all supported algorithms
• Removed Grin Auto-Switcher (C31 is obsolete now and the switcher would not work on next Grin fork)
• Removed support for MNX (Minex Coin project is dead / abandoned by developers)
• Added temperature, consumption and fan speed readings in API and long statistics
• Internal bug fixes

Expected performance (Beam Hash III)

AMD:

• Radeon VII: 37.5 sol/s
• Vega 64 21.5 sol/s
• Vega 56 18.0 sol/s
• RX 5700 20.5 sol/s
• RX 5600 13 sol/s
• RX 580 12.5 sol/s

Nvidia:

• RTX 2080 22 sol/s
• RTX 2060 17 sol/s
• GTX 1070 13 sol/s
• GTX 1060 6G 8 sol/s

Expected performance (GRIN-C29M)

• Radeon VII: 8.05 g/s
• Vega 64 5.8 g/s
• Vega 56 5.0 g/s
• RX 5700 4.2 g/s
• RX 580 2.95 g/s

Expected performance (Cortex)

• Radeon VII: 3.05 g/s (0.073 h/s)
• Vega 64 2.2 g/s (0.053 h/s)
• Vega 56 2.0 g/s (0.048 h/s)
• RX 5700 1.85 g/s (0.044 h/s)
• RX 580 1.25 g/s (0.030 h/s)

lolMiner 0.9.8

lolMiner 0.9.8

Changes (from 0.9.7)

• Improved GRIN-C29M solver, Better performance (+7-12% depending on card) and smaller memory use (fits 6G now)
• Added support for Radeon 5500 (XT) and 5600 (XT) on all Grin algorithms
• Added BEAM support for Radeon 5500, 5600 and 5700 series (Needing 19.30 and newer driver)
• Fixed driver incompatibilities with some newer driver versions (e.g. Linux 19.50)
• Renamed GRIN-AD29 to MWC-C29D to mine cuckarood-29
• Added a small penalty to C32 in auto switcher - it seems the solver has not perfect fidelity and the penalty will make it switch a bit later to cover this. Will hopefully be fixed in next version
• Removed 14 cycle fidelity from overview - new C29M solver does not output it properly.

Changes (from 0.9.8 to 0.9.8.1 (Linux only))

• Fixed a bug with Vega GPUs trying to read wrong kernels in Grin auto switcher

lolMiner 0.9.7

lolMiner 0.9.7

Changes (From 0.9.6.1)

• Windows: Increased GRIN-C32 performance on Navi cards by 15-18%
• Linux: Increased GRIN-C32 performance on Vega, VII & Navi cards by 15-18%
• Added a Grin Auto profit switcher (use: --coin GRIN-AUTO + further options). Please read https://github.com/Lolliedieb/lolMiner-releases/wiki/Grin-Automatic-Profit-Switching carefully how to use it and which pools are supported.

Expected Performance (Grin C32)

Testrig runs mmpOS (Linux) + amdgpu-pro 19.30, stock settings

Card	Windows	Linux
Radeon VII	0.65 g/s	0.77 g/s
Vega 64	0.42 g/s	0.49 g/s
Vega 56:	0.36 g/s	0.42 g/s
RX 5700:	0.4 g/s	0.4 g/s

lolMiner 0.9.6

lolMiner 0.9.6

Changes (0.9.6 to 0.9.6.1)

• Fixed a bug loading wrong kernel on Polaris / Vega cards for C31
  (Note: On Linux only Polaris cards were affected)

Changes (from 0.9.5)

• Significant improvement on GRIN-C29M performance (+6-7% on 580 and Vega cards, +10% on Navi)
• Significant improvement on GRIN-C31 and GRIN-C32 solver (~ +6% on all AMD cards)
• Added a 16G GRIN-C32 solver (Approx 20% faster on Radeon VII, Vega FE and 570 16G)

Note

Due to the lack of users I was forced to increase the fee on all Grin codes to 2%. This is a step back to the fee model I had before 0.7, i.e. I am taking 2% until the code payed off its development and lower it afterwards. This is kind of my last resort to keep the development of Grin codes for AMD alive.

Expected performances

GRIN-C29M (stock clocks, tested using amdgpu-pro 19.30)

• Radeon VII: 6.4 g/s
• Vega 64: 4.6 g/s
• Vega 56: 4.1 g/s
• RX 5700: 4.4 g/s
• RX 580 (8 G): 2.6 g/s
• RX 570 (8 G): 2.4 g/s

GRIN-C31 (stock clocks, tested using amdgpu-pro 19.30)

Note: Windows speeds on V56 / V64 / VII are ~7% lower due to a driver issue that prevents to use all optimizations

• Radeon VII: 2.05 g/s
• Vega 64: 1.37 g/s
• Vega 56: 1.15 g/s
• RX 5700: 1.12 g/s
• RX 570: 0.67 g/s

GRIN-C32 (stock clocks, tested using amdgpu-pro 19.30)

• Radeon VII: 0.66 g/s
• Vega FE: 0.5 g/s
• Vega 64: 0.42 g/s
• Vega 56: 0.36 g/s
• RX 5700: 0.34 g/s
• RX 570 (8 G): 0.23 g/s
• RX 570 (8 G): 0.18 g/s

lolMiner 0.9.5.1

lolMiner 0.9.5.1

Change to 0.9.5.1 (Hotfix)

• Fixed a potential crash issue in grin straum

Changes (From 0.9.3 (Win) / 0.9.4 (Linux))

• Added support for Grin CuckarooM-29 (hard fork on Jan 16th) on 8G AMD GPUs, use --coin GRIN-C29M to mine with it.
  Hint: The miner will pause until the fork height is reached not to waste energy. Use --coin FLOO-C29M to test the miner in floonet testnet before if you like.
• Improved C31 performance on 8G cards by ~5% (Windows: relatively to 0.9.3, Linux: relatively to 0.9.4)
• Navi on Windows now runs same kernels as in Linux
• Slightly lowered energy use of C31 / C32 solver
• Added aliases GRIN-C31 and GRIN-C32 for the Cuckatoo solvers (the old names still exist and continue to work)
• Driver requirement for all GRIN codes: 18.50 for all pre-Navi cards, 19.30 for Navi (Linux); Adrenaline 18.12 for all pre-Navi, Adrenaline 19.10 for Navi

Further news:

Added wiki article about C31 fade out and when changing to C32 makes sense:
https://github.com/Lolliedieb/lolMiner-releases/wiki/All-you-need-to-know-about-Grin-difficulty,-C29,-C31-fade-out-and-C32

Expected performance

GRIN-C29M (stock clocks, tested using amdgpu-pro 19.30)

Note: Windows speeds may differ slightly (max 3-4%)

• Radeon VII: 6.1 g/s
• Vega 64: 4.4 g/s
• Vega 56: 3.7 g/s
• RX 5700: 4.0 g/s
• RX 570: 2.2 g/s

GRIN-C31 (stock clocks, tested using amdgpu-pro 19.30)

Note: Windows speeds on V56 / V64 / VII are ~7% lower due to a driver issue that prevents to use all optimizations
Note #2: ROCm speeds often 5% quicker then in this table when available

• Radeon VII: 1.9 g/s
• Vega 64: 1.3 g/s
• Vega 56: 1.07 g/s
• RX 5700: 1.07 g/s
• RX 570: 0.63 g/s

GRIN-C32 (stock clocks, tested using amdgpu-pro 19.30)

• Radeon VII: 0.5 g/s
• Vega 64: 0.4 g/s
• Vega 56: 0.32 g/s
• RX 5700: 0.31 g/s
• RX 570: 0.17 g/s

lolMiner 0.9.4 (Currently Linux only)

lolMiner 0.9.4

Changes from 0.9.3

• New GRIN-AT31 performance code for Vega (+7%) and Navi (+12%). Requires amdgpu-pro 18.50 or newer or ROCm 2.10 driver
• Experimental support for Cuckatoo-32 (use --coin GRIN-AT32) on 8G AMD cards (see further notes)
• Windows release postponed due to incompatibilities with the new performance codes.

Expected performance (C31)

Radeon VII (Stock, 19.30): 1.91 g/s
Radeon VII (1330 / 975 / 775mV, ROCm 2.10): 1.55 g/s
Vega 64 (1550 / 1100 / 1000mV, ROCm 2.10): 1.45 g/s
Vega 64 (1350 / 1025 / 875mV, ROCm 2.10): 1.25 g/s
Vega 64 (1350 / 1025 / 875mV, 19.30): 1.22 g/s
Vega 56 (1270 / 900 / 862mV, 19.30): 1.1 g/s
RX 5700 (Power Color Red Dragon, Stock, 19.30): 0.99 g/s

Expected performance (C32)

Radeon VII (Stock): 0.5 g/s
RX 64 (Stock): 0.39 g/s
RX 56 (Stock): 0.35 g/s

About Cuckatoo-32 (Grin)

The primary grin proof of work Cuckatoo 31+ is designed in a way that the original instance - cuckatoo-31 - will fade out beginning mid January 2020, which means its difficulty will increase slowly over a period of 31 weeks until it gets impossible to mine a C31 block on the chain. But as by design also more difficult instances of Cuckatoo, namely Cuckatoo-32 ... Cuckatoo-63 are implemented on the chain that also can make blocks. The difficulties of this higher instances will remain stable, such that at some point it will be more profitable to mine Cuckatoo-32 instead of Cuckatoo-31 (likely from mid of February).

lolMiner 0.8.4 provides the first public implementation on a C32 GPU miner for 8G cards. The code is not yet tuned to the max and thus flagged experimental. When you want to pool mine with it make sure the pool supports Cuckatoo-32. Some pools (e.g. grinmint.com) - especially the pools using the reference pool software - support it on their C31 ports without mentioning it, other pools currently reject C32 shares. Solo mining with C32 will work as usual. Note that a share of C32 has ~2.064 times the weight of a C31 share and will thus rewarded higher / has a higher chance to mine a block by that factor.

Currently there are already two solo mined C32 blocks on the Grin blockchain using an early version of the code published with lolMiner 0.8.4. The two blocks have height 430112 and 430255.

Have fun experimenting with C32.

lolMiner 0.9.3

lolMiner_v093_Win64.zip

lolMiner 0.9.3

Changes from 0.9.2

• Extended GRIN-AT31 compatibility to older drivers (18.x +)
• Improved GRIN-AT31 performance on ROCm (RX 470/480/570/580/Vega/VII)
• Introduced early job cancellation for GRIN-AT31+ (improves hash on pool side, see further release notes)
• Deeply reworked kernel scheduler
• Fixed GRIN-AT31 kernel bugs (improving stability and fidelity)
• Fixed Bug: Vega FE loading 8G instead of 16G GRIN-AT31 solver in Windows
• Fixed Bug: Watchdog did not call right file in Windows
• Added --disablewatchdog 1 parameter to disable the 0 sol/s / 0 g/s detection

About Early Job Cancellation for GRIN

The GRIN proof of work is a compute intense and rather slow algorithm. Especially C31 often needs (at 1 g/s) about one second for each graph processed. In case a new job (for a new chain height) arrives, the current calculation effort is worthless, because the block that was mined on already got found.
lolMiner 0.9.3 now introduces an early cancellation for long lasting works: if a new work arrives that invalidates the current run calculations, they get canceled to start quicker on the fresh work. To demonstrate the effect see the example describing the 0.9.2 and 0.9.3 difference:

Assume you have a card running 1 g/s on GRIN-AT31. Then in 2 minutes (120 seconds) it will be able to process 120 graphs. On average - Grin has a 1 minute block time - two of these graphs are already obsolete when they got finished.

lolMiner 0.9.2 will display the 1 g/s, because of 120 processed graphs per 120 seconds. But two of the graphs are then filtered out in the stratum module, thus the pool can see at most 118 / 120 = 0.983 g/s (minus about 1 graph fee).

lolMiner 0.9.3 will cancel the running work before it gets completed. On average you will be able to process one more graph then 0.9.2 assuming both are canceled about half way through. Thus lolMiner 0.9.3 starts 121 graphs and completes 119 of them. The displayed hash rate is now 119 graphs /120 seconds = 0.991 g/s. This equals what the pool could see (minus one for fee), because the 119 completed are the ones that got not canceled early.

Conclusion: lolMiner 0.9.3 DISPLAYED hash rate may be a little lower then 0.9.2, but what arrives at pool is better. The slower the cards are, the more drastic is this effect, e.g. a 580 8G running at 0.65 g/s will benefit almost 2% on pool side, a VII with 1.75 g/s only half a percent.

Combined with the mostly on GPU cycle finder lolMiner achieves a stale share rate of less then 0.7% and thus gives you best displayed to pool hash rate ratio available for Grin Cuckatoo-31.

lolMiner 0.9.2

lolMiner 0.9.2

Changes from 0.9.1

• Significant performance improvement of GRIN-AT31 on 8 / 16G cards (+5% on Polaris & Vega, +10 on Navi)
• Experimental support for GRIN-AT31 and Polaris, Vega and VII using AMD ROCm drivers
• Added range checks to GRIN-AT31 code (improves better stability)
• Added function to call external watchdog scripts in case a GPU fails during mining (see release notes)

Usage of Watchdog Script

In case the miner detects no action of a GPU for at least a minute it will call the included scripts "reboot.sh" (Linux) or "reboot.bat" (Windows) and display a warning message in red. Afterwards the counters are reset. The scripts can be used to trigger a reboot of the rig or to call any other watchdog actions. The miner itself will take no further action and continue operation on the remaining cards.

Expected Performance:

• Radeon VII (stock): 1.79 g/s
• Radeon VII (1340/1000/0.825v, 130W): 1.37 g/s
• Vega FE (stock): ~1.3 g/s
• Vega 56 (1220/900/0.825v, 130W): 1.0 g/s
• RX 5700 (Red Dragon, stock): 0.91 g/s
• RX 580 8G: 0.56 g/s