Beginners Guide to Mining GroestlCoin with AMD cards and SPH-SGMiner

Started by child_harold, May 09, 2014, 12:54:58 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

commandrix

Mining GroestlCoin for beginners using SPH4SGMiner (AMD)

Greetings miners and welcome into the world of Groestl, an advanced hashing
algorithm.
What is Grøstl?
This new algorithm has many new advantages; it provides a very efficient way
to mine coins. In fact, the Grøstl algorithm requires NOTICEABLY less power;
thus produces a lot less heat. It also improves the lifetime of your mining
hardware because of the previous 2 advantages.
With the summer approaching, Grøstl will become very handy and will have
you save a ton of money over power and cooling. It is new, revolutionary and
the coin that brought it to life is GroestlCoin. Backed by a strong community,
this algorithm has many advantages.
Grøstl is unlike any other algos in the SHA4family. The Grøstl algo has a unique
similarity to AES compared to other algos, allowing devices with AES
Acceleration implementations (e.g. AES4NI for Intel and NEON for ARM) to
provide dramatic improvements when hashing Grøstl.
The humorous name is a play on words meaning Hash (hashed browns) in
Austrian. The word Grøstl is spelt with a Danish ø, because the Grøstl Team is a
'hash' of Danish and Austrian cryptographers.
How can I mine it?
To begin mining GrøstlCoin you need to subscribe to a pool.
To find pools for your Grøstl coin of your choice, you can select from the
available pools in the Official Pool list of the forum. On this guide, we will use
grs.cryptohunger.com which offers reliability and good support. 
You also need to setup a miner, or mining software on your computer that you
will be mining with. We will only show how to mine with some models of the
latest AMD cards, which are usually the standard in mining. Some might have
older GPUs, the settings will differ a lot. Please consult our database of device
settings if yours is not mentioned below.
Once you acquired the miner, and registered on a pool, you will need to
configure your miner. We will cover that later.

Registering on a pool
First, you should start by registering at grs.cryptohunger.com. On the top4right,
you will see a drop4down menu. Simply go over there and select register.
Enter all the required information, select a complex password, and also a PIN.
You will need that NIP later to withdraw your coins or change settngs in your
accounts.

Creating workers

In order for your mining software to reach the pool and starts mining, you
need to have "workers". Different workers should be used for each of your
mining rigs.
Log in the pool, and select the "My Workers" link under the My Account tab.
When creating your workers, make sure NOT to use the same password you
use for your account.
The worker passwords do not need to be too crazy as they can be seen by the
pool administrators and are transmitted in plain text. The "worse" thing that
could happen, if somebody has your worker password, is that he could mine on
your worker. Basically, that would credit YOU for whatever he mines on YOUR
workers, so no worry here you can use any password there.
Your workers will be used in your mining software combined with your pool
username. If your username is joeblow123 and your worker is miner1 with a
password like pass1, the string you would use as your username in your mining
configuration would be joeblow.123 .

Mining software
In order to mine GroestlCoin, you will need to use a compatible mining
software. We recommend using sph4sgminer 4.1.0 and up, as it supports the
GroestlCoin (Grøstl) kernel.
Here is a couple of links where you can grab SPH4SGMINER and download it to
your PC:

      Official Forum Thread: h`ps://bitcointalk.org/index.php?
topic=475795.0
     
QuoteWindows (SPH): 

h`ps://mega.co.nz/# ftAYgiDbT
8dQtGr2H5C5JKbH9ljUn7oHzB9ij3If7HFCKmSEFw48 
      Windows (Regular) : h`p://www.sgminerwindows.com/ 
      Linux Source (SPH): h`ps://github.com/pre`yhatemachine/sph4
sgminer 
      Linux Source (Regular): h`ps://github.com/sgminer4dev/sgminer 

Install AMD Catalyst Control Center

First you must install the correct driver and version of Catalyst Control Center
for your GPU. Installing CCC also installs the OpenCL libraries required for
mining. Use the AMD support page to identify to software version you require:
h`p://support.amd.com/en4us/download

Install TrixX 
Download and install Sapphire TrixX (or MSI Afterburner). This software will
allow you to over/under clock your GPU core4clock and memory clock speed. It
will also display your current (default) clock settngs. You need this information
to configure SPH4SGMiner.
You can download Trixx from: h`ps://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/Triftft/
You can download Afterburner from: h`p://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/
download.htm

Configuring SPH-SGMiner
Extract the downloaded zip file wherever you want on your computer. Once
you have a sgminer folder, you can start preparing your BATCH file. This will
start the miner along with your desired configuration proper to the mining
hardware you are using.
Open NOTEPAD, and start creating your batch executable. Some fields will
require modifications; we will cover that after this step.
Start by pasting the following:
You will need to replace USERNAME.WORKERNAME with the username and
worker you have setup earlier on the pool. Returning to our example, we
would be entering "4u joeblow.123 4p pass1"
The thread-concurrency, I, lookup-gap, workersize, g, gpu-engine and gpumemclock
settngs will differ depending on the model of video card you are
using for mining. Use the table below to find basic settngs for different types
of cards. Check in Trixx to make sure (same GPU model may vary).
Save the .txt file as "sgstart.bat" and make sure to save it in your SGMINER's
folder. You can create a shortcut from there to your desktop, but the BATCH file
has to be in sgminer's folder. Now that you are all set, you can start mining 
Simply double click your sgstart.bat file and enjoy mining Grøstl 
Quotesetx GPU_MAft_ALLOC_PERCENT
100

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS
1

sgminer.exe --kernel groestlcoin -o stratum+tcp://
cryptohunger.com:3333 -u USERNAME.WORKERNAME -p
WORKERPASSWORD --thread-concurrency 8192 -I 20 --lookupgap
2 -- worksize 256 -g 1 --gpu-engine 1100 --gpumemclock
1500 --gpu- powertune 20


AMD GPU Model Settings
For a detailed list see here

"

Once you get going, you can then further tweak your settngs. The relevant
ones are Intensity, Coreclock and Memclock settngs. 
WARNING'
Changing your AMD GPU's default clock settngs should be done using Trixx or
MSI Afterburner before editing your .bat accordingly. Editing the .bat without
using over4clocking software may harm your GPU and result in errors

Model Hashrate Settings
Quote2ti0x ~11MH/s
I#20# w#256#  lookup gap#2#  thread concurrency#81ti2#  gpu #
powertune#20#  gpu engine#ti70#  gpu memclock#1400
2ti0 ~tiMH/s 4I 20 4g 1 4w 256 44gpu4engine 1100 —gpu4memclock 1500 44thread4
concurrency 22400 44gpu4 powertune 20
280x ~7MH/s 4I 20 4g 1 44thread4concurrency 81ti2 44gpu4engine 1100 44gpu4
memclock 1500 4w 256 44gpu4 powertune 20
7ti50 ~5.5MH/s
I#20# g#1#  thread concurrency#22400#  gpu engine#1100#  gpu
memclock#1000# w#256#  gpu #powertune#20
5770 ~3.2MH/s
I#20# g#1#  thread concurrency#81ti2#  gpu engine#850#  gpu
memclock#1250# w#128#  gpu #powertune#20
To make sure your miner is properly configured, you need to check in your
miner if you are gettng hardware errors. This can be seen as HW:0 in sgminer,
which would be a good sign.
If you ever get HW errors, turn of the machine immediately and contact us in
the forum or on IRC. Bad hardware will also produce those errors, but most of
the time it's related to configuration settngs.
*Note: A lot of people who paste their config settngs from Scrypt4configs
might experience a lot of HW errors. You will need to lower down your
memclock speed until you see it is stable. You then raise the Coreclock slowly
upwards. Try to add small amounts at the time. If you fiddle with your settngs
enough, you might get decent hashpower gains out of it.
Compared to scrypt, Grøstl has increased hashrate. You want to aim for; 
QuoteRti 2ti0x ~ 11.5Mh/s

Rti 2ti0 ~ tiMh/s

Rti 280x ~7Mh/s                                                                                                   
HD7ti50 ~ 5.5Mh/s
What might get you confused is the low number of accepts. This is normal and
your WU should be really low.

Multiple GPU Settings
If you have more than one AMD card you will need to add extra commands
after commas. In the example below we have created a command for two 280x
cards. See how it differs to the one above.
Quotesetx GPU_MAft_ALLOC_PERCENT
100

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS
1

sgminer.exe --kernel groestlcoin -o stratum+tcp://
cryptohunger.com:3333 -u USERNAME.WORKERNAME -p
WORKERPASSWORD --thread-concurrency 8192, 8192 -I 20, 20
--lookup-gap 2, 2 -- worksize 256, 256 -g 1, 1 --gpuengine
1100, 1100 --gpu-memclock 1500, 1500 --gpu-
powertune 20, 20

So now if I add a third 280x to my rig the command would looks like:
Quotesetx GPU_MAft_ALLOC_PERCENT
100

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS
1

sgminer.exe --kernel groestlcoin -o stratum+tcp://
cryptohunger.com:3333 -u USERNAME.WORKERNAME -p
WORKERPASSWORD --thread-concurrency 8192, 8192, 8192 -I
20, 20, 20 --lookup-gap 2, 2, 2 -- worksize 256, 256, 256
-g 1, 1, 1 --gpu-engine 1100, 1100, 1100 --gpu-memclock
1500, 1500, 1500 --gpu- powertune 20, 20, 20
Remember these settngs differ for every model of card.
If you are using different models of GPU you need to determine what ORDER
the cards go in when writing your command (does my 5770 come before or
after my 280x when creating this command?, for example)
sgminer.exe -n
This will show you your cards labelled 0, 1 , 2 etc. and the order your gpu
commands should go in.


The conf file
Instead of issuing the command above some users prefer to create/edit a .conf
file. The conf file is created in the SGMiner folder just like the bat was using
Notepad. The bat command changes to point at the conf file, like this:

Quotesetx GPU_MAft_ALLOC_PERCENT
100

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS
1

sgminer.exe -c name-of-your.conf
Using a conf makes it is easier to gain granular control over your cards.  The
configuration (conf) file for a single 280x should something look like this
(depending on which 280x you have):


From the GroestlCoin Team

Quote{
"pools" : [
  {
    "url" : "stratum+tcp://first-pool.com:3333",
    "user" : "your.worker",
    "pass" : "your pass"
  },
  {
    "url" : "stratum+tcp://backup-pool1.com:3333",
    "user" : "your.worker",
    "pass" : "your pass"  }
],
"
kernel" : "groestlcoin"
"intensity" : "20, 20",
"thread-concurrency" : "8192, 8192",
"lookup-gap" : "2, 2",
"worksize" : "256, 256",
"gpu-engine" : "1100, 1100",
"gpu-fan" : "0-85, 0-85",
"gpu-memclock" : "1500, 1500",
"gpu-threads" : "2, 2",
"gpu-powertune" : "20, 20",
"temp-cutoff" : "83, 83",
"temp-overheat" : "80, 80",
"temp-target" : "70, 70",
"
auto-fan" : true,
"auto-gpu" : true,
"expiry" : "120",
"failover-only" : true,
"log" : "5",
"queue" : "4",
"scan-time" : "40",
"temp-hysteresis" : "3",
"no-submit-stale" : true



Copy/Paste the above into a Notepad file and save it as whatever.conf. Edit the
pool, backup pool and gpu information accordingly. As before a multi4gpu conf
will have extra commands after commas. This is not necessary for every
parameter as you'll observe:


Quote{
"pools" : [
  {
    "url" : "stratum+tcp://first-pool.com:3333",
    "user" : "your.worker",
    "pass" : "your pass"
  },
  {
    "url" : "stratum+tcp://backup-pool1.com:3333",
    "user" : "your.worker",
    "pass" : "your pass"  }
],
"
kernel" : "groestlcoin"
"intensity" : "20",
"thread-concurrency" : "8192",
"lookup-gap" : "0",
"worksize" : "256",
"gpu-threads" : "2",
"gpu-engine" : "1100",
"gpu-fan" : "0-85",
"gpu-memclock" : "1500",
"gpu-powertune" : "20",
"temp-cutoff" : "83",
"temp-overheat" : "80",
"temp-target" : "70",
"
auto-fan" : true,
"auto-gpu" : true,
"expiry" : "120",
"failover-only" : true,
"log" : "5",
"queue" : "4",
"scan-time" : "40",
"temp-hysteresis" : "3",
"no-submit-stale" : true
}

We hope all those informations were enough to get you going. Our mining
community is very active, and are always helpful to beginners,
Happy mining

From the GroestlCoin Team


klarakos

Hi!

This seems to me that you have a too old / too new AMD driver.

Perhaps try BAMT?