NSGminer

A multithreaded multipool GPU, CPU and FPGA miner with the AMD and NVIDIA GPU support including temperature monitoring, fan speed monitoring, clock speed and voltage reporting, (over/under)clocking for NeoScrypt powered coins. Do not use on multiple block chains at the same time!

This code is provided entirely free of charge with no guarantee or responsibility of any kind expressed or implied.

John Doering [email protected]

SOURCE CODE AND PRE-COMPILED BINARIES:

http://github.com/ghostlander/nsgminer

License: GPLv3. See COPYING for details.

READ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY BELOW FOR FIRST TIME USERS!

Everything you probably want, condensed: build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libcurl4-gnutls-dev uthash-dev libncursesw5-dev

Dependencies: autoconf http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/ automake http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/ libtool http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/ pkg-config http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config ...or pkgconf https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf

libcurl4-gnutls-dev  http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/

Optional Dependencies: Text-User-Interface (TUI): curses dev library; any one of: libncurses5-dev http://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/ (Linux and Mac) libncursesw5-dev ^ same libpdcurses http://pdcurses.sourceforge.net/ (Linux/Mac/Windows)

Multiple FPGA autodetection: any one of:
  sysfs              (builtin to most Linux kernels, just mount on /sys)
  libudev-dev        http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/libudev/

X6500 and ZTEX FPGA boards:
  libusb-1.0-0-dev   http://www.libusb.org/

ATi/AMD video card GPU mining:
  AMD APP SDK        http://developer.amd.com/tools/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/

CPU mining optimized assembly algorithms:
  yasm 1.0.1+        http://yasm.tortall.net/

NSGminer specific configuration options: --disable-neoscrypt Build without support for NeoScrypt (default enabled) --enable-scrypt Build with support for Scrypt (default disabled) --enable-sha256d Build with support for SHA-256d (default disabled) --enable-cpumining Build with support for CPU mining (default disabled) --disable-opencl Build without support for OpenCL (default enabled) --disable-adl Build with no ADL GPU monitoring (default enabled) --disable-nvml Build with no NVML GPU monitoring (default enabled) --enable-bitforce Add support for BitForce FPGAs (default disabled) --enable-icarus Add support for Icarus FPGAs (default disabled) --enable-modminer Add support for ModMiner FPGAs (default disabled) --enable-x6500 Add support for X6500 FPGAs (default disabled, libusb required if enabled) --enable-ztex Add support for ZTEX FPGAs (default disabled, libusb required if enabled) --without-curses Compile support for curses TUI (default enabled) --without-libudev Autodetect FPGAs using libudev (default enabled)

To build with GPU mining support:

Install AMD APP sdk, ideal version (see FAQ!) - put it into a system location. Download the correct version for either 32 bit or 64 bit from here: http://developer.amd.com/tools/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/downloads/

This will give you a file with a name like AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64.tgz

Then:

sudo -i cd /opt tar xf /path/to/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64.tgz cd / tar xf /opt/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64/icd-registration.tgz ln -s /opt/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64/include/CL /usr/include ln -s /opt/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.4-lnx64/lib/x86_64/* /usr/lib/ ldconfig

If you are on 32 bit, x86_64 in the 2nd last line should be x86

Basic *nix build instructions:

./autogen.sh # only needed if building from git repo ./configure # NOT needed if autogen.sh used make

On Mac OS X, you can use Homebrew to install the dependency libraries. When you are ready to build NSGminer, you may need to point the configure script at one or more pkg-config paths. For example: ./configure PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/opt/curl/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/opt/jansson/lib/pkgconfig

Native WIN32 build instructions: see windows-build.txt

If you build NSGminer from source, it is recommended that you run it from the build directory. On *nix, you will usually need to prepend your command with a path like this (if you are in the nsgminer directory already): ./nsgminer

Usage instructions: Run "nsgminer --help" to see options:

Usage: nsgminer [-atDdGCEgIKklmpxPQqsTouvwOchnV] Options for both config file and command line: --neoscrypt Use the NeoScrypt algorithm for mining --scrypt Use the Scrypt algorithm for mining --lookup-gap Specify GPU look-up gap (Scrypt only), comma separated --shaders Specify GPU shaders per card (Scrypt only), comma separated --thread-concurrency Specify GPU thread concurrency per card (Scrypt only), comma separated --sha256d Use the SHA-256d algorithm for mining --algo|-a Specify sha256 implementation for CPU mining: auto Benchmark at startup and pick fastest algorithm c Linux kernel sha256, implemented in C 4way tcatm's 4-way SSE2 implementation via VIA padlock implementation cryptopp Crypto++ C/C++ implementation sse2_64 SSE2 64 bit implementation for x86_64 machines (default: sse2_64) --api-allow Allow API access only to the given list of [G:]IP[/Prefix] addresses[/subnets] --api-description Description placed in the API status header, default: miner version --api-groups API one letter groups G:cmd:cmd[,P:cmd:*...] defining the cmds a groups can use --api-listen Enable API, default: disabled --api-network Allow API (if enabled) to listen on/for any address, default: only 127.0.0.1 --api-port Port number of miner API (default: 4028) --auto-fan Automatically adjust all GPU fan speeds to maintain a target temperature --auto-gpu Automatically adjust all GPU engine clock speeds to maintain a target temperature --balance Change multipool strategy from failover to even share balance --benchmark Run the miner in benchmark mode - produces no shares --coinbase-addr Set coinbase payout address for solo mining --coinbase-sig Set coinbase signature when possible --compact Use compact display without per device statistics --cpu-threads|-t Number of miner CPU threads (default: -1) --debug|-D Enable debug output --debuglog Enable debug logging --device|-d Select device to use, (Use repeat -d for multiple devices, default: all) --disable-gpu|-G Disable GPU mining even if suitable devices exist --disable-rejecting Automatically disable pools that continually reject shares --enable-cpu|-C Enable CPU mining with other mining (default: no CPU mining if other devices exist) --expiry|-E Upper bound on how many seconds after getting work we consider a share from it stale (w/o longpoll active) (default: 120) --expiry-lp Upper bound on how many seconds after getting work we consider a share from it stale (with longpoll active) (default: 3600) --failover-only Don't leak work to backup pools when primary pool is lagging --gpu-dyninterval Set the refresh interval in ms for GPUs using dynamic intensity (default: 7) --gpu-platform Select OpenCL platform ID to use for GPU mining (default: -1) --gpu-threads|-g Number of threads per GPU (1 - 10) (default: 1) --gpu-map Map OpenCL to ADL or NVML device order manually, paired CSV (e.g. 1:0,2:1 maps OpenCL 1 to ADL 0, 2 to 1) --gpu-engine GPU engine (over)clock range in MHz - one value, range and/or comma separated list (e.g. 850-900,900,750-850) --gpu-fan GPU fan percentage range - one value, range and/or comma separated list (e.g. 0-85,85,65) --gpu-memclock Set the GPU memory (over)clock in MHz - one value for all or separate by commas for per card --gpu-memdiff Set a fixed difference in clock speed between the GPU and memory in auto-gpu mode --gpu-powertune Set the GPU powertune percentage - one value for all or separate by commas for per card --gpu-reorder Attempt to reorder GPU devices according to PCI Bus ID --gpu-vddc Set the GPU voltage in Volts - one value for all or separate by commas for per card --intensity|-I Intensity of GPU scanning (d or fixed number within range; default: d to maintain desktop interactivity) --kernel-path|-K Specify a path to where bitstream and kernel files are (default: "/usr/local/bin") --kernel|-k Specify an OpenCL kernel to use, one value or comma separated neoscrypt generic NeoScrypt kernel neoscrypt_vliw NeoScrypt AMD VLIW kernel neoscrypt_vliwp NeoScrypt AMD VLIW kernel (parallel) scrypt generic Scrypt kernel diablo SHA-256d kernel by Diablo3D diakgcn SHA-256d kernel by Diapolo for AMD GCN phatk SHA-256d kernel by Phateus poclbm SHA-256d kernel of the Python OpenCL Bitcoin Miner --load-balance Change multipool strategy from failover to efficiency based balance --log|-l Interval in seconds between log output (default: 5) --log-show-date Show date on every log line in addition to time --monitor|-m Use custom pipe cmd for output messages --net-delay Impose small delays in networking to not overload slow routers --no-adl Disable the AMD Display Library used for monitoring and setting GPU parameters --no-nvml Disable the NVIDIA Managment Library used for monitoring GPU parameters --no-gbt Disable getblocktemplate support --no-getwork Disable getwork support --no-longpoll Disable X-Long-Polling support --no-restart Do not attempt to restart devices that hang --no-stratum Disable Stratum detection --no-submit-stale Don't submit shares if they are detected as stale --pass|-p Password for a JSON-RPC server --per-device-stats Force verbose mode and output per-device statistics --pool-priority Priority for just the previous-defined pool --pool-proxy|-x Proxy URI to use for connecting to just the previous-defined pool --protocol-dump|-P Verbose dump of protocol-level activities --queue|-Q Minimum number of work items to have queued (0+) (default: 1) --quiet|-q Disable logging output, display status and errors --real-quiet Disable all output --remove-disabled Remove disabled devices entirely, as if they didn't exist --retries Number of times to retry failed submissions before giving up (-1 means never) (default: -1) --rotate Change multipool strategy from failover to regularly rotate at N minutes (default: 0) --round-robin Change multipool strategy from failover to round robin on failure --scan-time|-s Upper bound on time spent scanning current work, in seconds (default: 60) --sched-start Set a time of day in HH:MM to start mining (a once off without a stop time) --sched-stop Set a time of day in HH:MM to stop mining (will quit without a start time) --shaders Specify GPU shaders per card (Scrypt only), comma separated --sharelog Append share log to file --shares Quit after mining N shares (default: unlimited) --skip-security-checks Skip security checks sometimes to save bandwidth; only check 1/th of the time (default: never skip) --socks-proxy Set socks4 proxy (host:port) --submit-threads Minimum number of concurrent share submissions (default: 64) --syslog Use system log for output messages (default: standard error) --temp-cutoff Maximum temperature devices will be allowed to reach before being disabled, one value or comma separated list --temp-hysteresis Set how much the temperature can fluctuate outside limits when automanaging speeds (default: 3) --temp-overheat Overheat temperature when automatically managing fan and GPU speeds, one value or comma separated list (default: 85) --temp-target Target temperature when automatically managing fan and clock speeds, one value or comma separated list --text-only|-T Disable ncurses formatted screen output --url|-o URL for a JSON-RPC server --user|-u Username for a JSON-RPC server --vectors|-v Override detected optimal vector (1, 2 or 4) - one value or comma separated list --verbose Log verbose output to stderr as well as status output --worksize|-w Override detected optimal worksize - one value or comma separated list --userpass|-O Username:Password pair for a JSON-RPC server --worktime Display extra work time debug information Options for command line only: --config|-c Load a JSON-format configuration file See example.conf for an example configuration. --help|-h Print this message --ndevs|-n Display number of detected GPUs, OpenCL platform information, and exit --version|-V Display version and exit

FPGA mining boards (BitForce, Icarus, ModMiner, X6500, ZTEX) only options:

--scan-serial|-S Serial port to probe for FPGA mining device

This option is only for BitForce, Icarus, and/or ModMiner FPGAs

To use FPGAs, you will need to be sure the user NSGminer is running as has appropriate permissions. This varies by operating system. On Gentoo: sudo usermod -a -G uucp On Ubuntu: sudo usermod -a -G dialout Note that on GNU/Linux systems, you will usually need to login again before group changes take effect.

By default, NSGminer will scan for autodetected FPGAs unless at least one -S is specified for that driver. If you specify -S and still want NSGminer to scan, you must also use "-S auto". If you want to prevent NSGminer from scanning without specifying a device, you can use "-S noauto". Note that presently, autodetection only works on Linux, and might only detect one device depending on the version of udev being used. If you want to scan all serial ports, you can use "-S all"; note that this may write data to non-mining devices which may then behave in unexpected ways!

On Linux, is usually of the format /dev/ttyUSBn On Mac OS X, is usually of the format /dev/cu.usb* On Windows, is usually of the format \.\COMn (where n = the correct device number for the FPGA device)

The official supplied binaries are compiled with support for all FPGAs. To force the code to only attempt detection with a specific driver, prepend the argument with the driver name followed by a colon. For example, "icarus:/dev/ttyUSB0" or "bitforce:\.\COM5" or using the short name: "ica:/dev/ttyUSB0" or "bfl:\.\COM5"

For other FPGA details see the FPGA-README

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ON USAGE:

After saving configuration from the menu, you do not need to give NSGminer any arguments and it will load your configuration.

Any configuration file may also contain a single "include" : "filename" to recursively include another configuration file. Writing the configuration will save all settings from all files in the output.

Single pool, regular desktop:

nsgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password

Single pool, dedicated miner:

nsgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password -I 9

Single pool, first card regular desktop, 3 other dedicated cards:

nsgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password -I d,9,9,9

Multiple pool, dedicated miner:

nsgminer -o http://pool1:port -u pool1username -p pool1password -o http://pool2:port -u pool2usernmae -p pool2password -I 9

Add overclocking settings, GPU and fan control for all cards:

nsgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password -I 9 --auto-fan --auto-gpu --gpu-engine 750-950 --gpu-memclock 300

Add overclocking settings, GPU and fan control with different engine settings for 4 cards:

nsgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password -I 9 --auto-fan --auto-gpu --gpu-engine 750-950,945,700-930,960 --gpu-memclock 300

Single pool with a standard http proxy, regular desktop:

nsgminer -o http://pool:port -x http://proxy:port -u username -p password

Single pool with a socks5 proxy, regular desktop:

nsgminer -o http://pool:port -x socks5://proxy:port -u username -p password

The list of proxy types are: http: standard http 1.1 proxy socks4: socks4 proxy socks5: socks5 proxy socks4a: socks4a proxy socks5h: socks5 proxy using a hostname

Proxy support requires cURL version 7.21.7 or newer.

If you specify the --socks-proxy option to NSGminer, it will only be applied to all pools that don't specify their own proxy setting like above

READ WARNINGS AND DOCUMENTATION BELOW ABOUT OVERCLOCKING

On Linux you virtually always need to export your display settings before starting to get all the cards recognised and/or temperature+clocking working:

export DISPLAY=:0

WHILE RUNNING:

The following options are available while running with a single keypress:

[P]ool management [G]PU management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit

P gives you:

Current pool management strategy: Failover [F]ailover only disabled [A]dd pool [R]emove pool [D]isable pool [E]nable pool [C]hange management strategy [S]witch pool [I]nformation

S gives you:

[L]ongpoll: On [Q]ueue: 1 [S]cantime: 60 [E]xpiry: 120 [R]etries: -1 [W]rite config file [M]iner restart

D gives you:

[N]ormal [C]lear [S]ilent mode (disable all output) [D]ebug:off [P]er-device:off [Q]uiet:off [V]erbose:off [R]PC debug:off [W]orkTime details:off co[M]pact: off [L]og interval:5

Q quits the application.

G gives you something like:

GPU 0: [124.2 / 191.3 Mh/s] [Q:212 A:77 R:33 HW:0 E:36% U:1.73/m] Temp: 67.0 C Fan Speed: 35% (2500 RPM) Engine Clock: 960 MHz Memory Clock: 480 MHz Vddc: 1.200 V Activity: 93% Powertune: 0% Last initialised: [2011-09-06 12:03:56] Thread 0: 62.4 Mh/s Enabled ALIVE Thread 1: 60.2 Mh/s Enabled ALIVE

[E]nable [D]isable [R]estart GPU [C]hange settings Or press any other key to continue

The running log shows output like this:

[2012-10-12 18:02:20] Accepted f0c05469 Diff 1/1 GPU 0 pool 1 [2012-10-12 18:02:22] Accepted 218ac982 Diff 7/1 GPU 1 pool 1 [2012-10-12 18:02:23] Accepted d8300795 Diff 1/1 GPU 3 pool 1 [2012-10-12 18:02:24] Accepted 122c1ff1 Diff 14/1 GPU 1 pool 1

The 8 byte hex value are the 2nd 8 bytes of the share being submitted to the pool. The 2 diff values are the actual difficulty target that share reached followed by the difficulty target the pool is currently asking for.

Also many issues and FAQs are covered in the forum threads dedicated to this program, https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=78192 https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=168174

The output line shows the following: 5s:1713.6 avg:1707.8 u:1710.2 Mh/s | A:729 R:8 S:0 HW:0 U:22.53/m

Each column is as follows: 5s: A 5 second exponentially decaying average hash rate avg: An all time average hash rate u: An all time average hash rate based on actual accepted shares A: The number of Accepted shares R: The number of Rejected shares S: Stale shares discarded (not submitted so don't count as rejects) HW: The number of HardWare errors U: The Utility defined as the number of shares / minute

The NSGminer status line shows: ST: 1 DW: 0 GW: 301 LW: 8 GF: 1 NB: 1 AS: 0 RF: 1 E: 2.42

ST is STaged work items (ready to use). DW is Discarded Work items (work from block no longer valid to work on) GW is GetWork requested (work items from pools) LW is Locally generated Work items GF is Getwork Fail Occasions (server slow to provide work) NB is New Blocks detected on the network AS is Active Submissions (shares in the process of submitting) RF is Remote Fail occasions (server slow to accept work) E is Efficiency defined as number of shares accepted (multiplied by their difficulty) per 2 KB of bandwidth

NOTE: Running intensities above 9 with current hardware is likely to only diminish return performance even if the hash rate might appear better. A good starting baseline intensity to try on dedicated miners is 9. Higher values are there to cope with future improvements in hardware.

The block display shows: Block: ...1b89f8d3 #217364 Diff:2.98M Started: [17:17:22] Best share: 2.71K

This shows a short stretch of the current block, the next block's height and difficulty, when the search for the new block started, and the all time best difficulty share you've found since starting NSGminer this time.

Each device shows: BFL 0: 68.7C | 872.7/866.7/992.0Mh/s | A:95 R:3 HW:0 U:13.86/m

Column are as follows: Temperature (if supported) 5 second exponentially decaying average hash rate An all time average hash rate An all time average hash rate based on actual accepted shares The number of accepted shares The number of rejected shares The number of hardware errors The utility, defined as the number of shares per minute

MULTIPOOL

FAILOVER STRATEGIES WITH MULTIPOOL: A number of different strategies for dealing with multipool setups are available. Each has their advantages and disadvantages so multiple strategies are available by user choice, as per the following list:

FAILOVER: The default strategy is failover. This means that if you input a number of pools, it will try to use them as a priority list, moving away from the 1st to the 2nd, 2nd to 3rd and so on. If any of the earlier pools recover, it will move back to the higher priority ones.

ROUND ROBIN: This strategy only moves from one pool to the next when the current one falls idle and makes no attempt to move otherwise.

ROTATE: This strategy moves at user-defined intervals from one active pool to the next, skipping pools that are idle.

LOAD BALANCE: This strategy sends work to all the pools to maintain optimum load. The most efficient pools will tend to get a lot more shares. If any pool falls idle, the rest will tend to take up the slack keeping the miner busy.

BALANCE: This strategy monitors the amount of difficulty 1 shares solved for each pool and uses it to try to end up doing the same amount of work for all pools.

SOLO MINING

NSGminer supports solo mining with any GBT-compatible bitcoin node (such as bitcoind). To use this mode, you need to specify the URL of your bitcoind node using the usual pool options (--url, --userpass, etc), and the --coinbase-addr option to specify the Bitcoin address you wish to receive the block rewards mined. If you are solo mining with more than one instance of NSGminer (or any other software) per payout address, you must also specify data using the --coinbase-sig option to ensure each miner is working on unique work. Note that this data will be publicly seen if your miner finds a block using any GBT-enabled pool, even when not solo mining (such as failover). If your bitcoin node does not support longpolling (for example, bitcoind 0.8.x), you should consider setting up a failover pool to provide you with block notifications. Note that solo mining does not use shares, so NSGminer's utility hashrate (third column) will swing widely and read zero until you find a block.

Example solo mining usage:

nsgminer -o http://localhost:8332 -u username -p password
--coinbase-addr 1QATWksNFGeUJCWBrN4g6hGM178Lovm7Wh
--coinbase-sig "rig1: This is Joe's block!"

LOGGING

NSGminer will log to stderr if it detects stderr is being redirected to a file. To enable logging simply add 2>logfile.txt to your command line and logfile.txt will contain the logged output at the log level you specify (normal, verbose, debug etc.)

In other words if you would normally use: ./nsgminer -o xxx -u yyy -p zzz if you use ./nsgminer -o xxx -u yyy -p zzz 2>logfile.txt it will log to a file called logfile.txt and otherwise work the same.

There is also the -m option on linux which will spawn a command of your choice and pipe the output directly to that command.

The WorkTime details 'debug' option adds details on the end of each line displayed for Accepted or Rejected work done. An example would be:

<-00000059.ed4834a3 M:X D:1.0 G:17:02:38:0.405 C:1.855 (2.995) W:3.440 (0.000) S:0.461 R:17:02:47

The first 2 hex codes are the previous block hash, the rest are reported in seconds unless stated otherwise: The previous hash is followed by the getwork mode used M:X where X is one of P:Pool, T:Test Pool, L:LP or B:Benchmark, then D:d.ddd is the difficulty required to get a share from the work, then G:hh:mm:ss:n.nnn, which is when the getwork or LP was sent to the pool and the n.nnn is how long it took to reply, followed by 'O' on its own if it is an original getwork, or 'C:n.nnn' if it was a clone with n.nnn stating how long after the work was recieved that it was cloned, (m.mmm) is how long from when the original work was received until work started, W:n.nnn is how long the work took to process until it was ready to submit, (m.mmm) is how long from ready to submit to actually doing the submit, this is usually 0.000 unless there was a problem with submitting the work, S:n.nnn is how long it took to submit the completed work and await the reply, R:hh:mm:ss is the actual time the work submit reply was received

If you start NSGminer with the --sharelog option, you can get detailed information for each share found. The argument to the option may be "-" for standard output (not advisable with the ncurses UI), any valid positive number for that file descriptor, or a filename.

To log share data to a file named "share.log", you can use either: ./nsgminer --sharelog 50 -o xxx -u yyy -p zzz 50>share.log ./nsgminer --sharelog share.log -o xxx -u yyy -p zzz

For every share found, data will be logged in a CSV (Comma Separated Value) format: timestamp,disposition,target,pool,dev,thr,sharehash,sharedata For example (this is wrapped, but it's all on one line for real): 1335313090,reject, ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff00000000, http://localhost:8337,GPU0,0, 6f983c918f3299b58febf95ec4d0c7094ed634bc13754553ec34fc3800000000, 00000001a0980aff4ce4a96d53f4b89a2d5f0e765c978640fe24372a000001c5 000000004a4366808f81d44f26df3d69d7dc4b3473385930462d9ab707b50498 f681634a4f1f63d01a0cd43fb338000000000080000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000080020000

OVERCLOCKING WARNING AND INFORMATION

AS WITH ALL OVERCLOCKING TOOLS YOU ARE ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY HARM YOU MAY CAUSE TO YOUR HARDWARE. OVERCLOCKING CAN INVALIDATE WARRANTIES, DAMAGE HARDWARE AND EVEN CAUSE FIRES. THE AUTHOR ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE YOU MAY CAUSE OR UNPLANNED CHILDREN THAT MAY OCCUR AS A RESULT.

The GPU monitoring, clocking and fanspeed control incorporated into NSGminer comes through use of the ATI Display Library. As such, it only supports ATI GPUs. Even if ADL support is successfully built into NSGminer, unless the card and driver supports it, no GPU monitoring/settings will be available.

NSGminer supports initial setting of GPU engine clock speed, memory clock speed, voltage, fanspeed, and the undocumented powertune feature of 69x0+ GPUs. The setting passed to NSGminer is used by all GPUs unless separate values are specified. All settings can all be changed within the menu on the fly on a per-GPU basis.

For example: --gpu-engine 950 --gpu-memclock 825

will try to set all GPU engine clocks to 950 and all memory clocks to 825, while: --gpu-engine 950,945,930,960 --gpu-memclock 300

will try to set the engine clock of card 0 to 950, 1 to 945, 2 to 930, 3 to 960 and all memory clocks to 300.

You can substitute 0 to leave the engine clock of a card at its default. For example, to keep the 2nd GPU to its default clocks: --gpu-engine 950,0,930,960 --gpu-memclock 300,0,300,300

AUTO MODES: There are two "auto" modes in NSGminer, --auto-fan and --auto-gpu. These can be used independently of each other and are complementary. Both auto modes are designed to safely change settings while trying to maintain a target temperature. By default this is set to 75 degrees C but can be changed with:

--temp-target e.g. --temp-target 80 Sets all cards' target temperature to 80 degrees.

--temp-target 75,85 Sets card 0 target temperature to 75, and card 1 to 85 degrees.

AUTO FAN: e.g. --auto-fan (implies 85% upper limit) --gpu-fan 25-85,65 --auto-fan

Fan control in auto fan works off the theory that the minimum possible fan required to maintain an optimal temperature will use less power, make less noise, and prolong the life of the fan. In auto-fan mode, the fan speed is limited to 85% if the temperature is below "overheat" intentionally, as higher fanspeeds on GPUs do not produce signficantly more cooling, yet significantly shorten the lifespan of the fans. If temperature reaches the overheat value, fanspeed will still be increased to 100%. The overheat value is set to 85 degrees by default and can be changed with:

--temp-overheat e.g. --temp-overheat 75,85 Sets card 0 overheat threshold to 75 degrees and card 1 to 85.

AUTO GPU: e.g. --auto-gpu --gpu-engine 750-950 --auto-gpu --gpu-engine 750-950,945,700-930,960

GPU control in auto gpu tries to maintain as high a clock speed as possible while not reaching overheat temperatures. As a lower clock speed limit, the auto-gpu mode checks the GPU card's "normal" clock speed and will not go below this unless you have manually set a lower speed in the range. Also, unless a higher clock speed was specified at startup, it will not raise the clockspeed. If the temperature climbs, fanspeed is adjusted and optimised before GPU engin e clockspeed is adjusted. If fan speed control is not available or already optimal, then GPU clock speed is only decreased if it goes over the target temperature by the hysteresis amount, which is set to 3 by default and can be changed with: --temp-hysteresis If the temperature drops below the target temperature, and engine clock speed is not at the highest level set at startup, NSGminer will raise the clock speed. If at any time you manually set an even higher clock speed successfully in NSGminer, it will record this value and use it as its new upper limit (and the same for low clock speeds and lower limits). If the temperature goes over the cutoff limit (95 degrees by default), NSGminer will completely disable the GPU from mining and it will not be re-enabled unless manually done so. The cutoff temperature can be changed with:

--temp-cutoff e.g. --temp-cutoff 95,105 Sets card 0 cutoff temperature to 95 and card 1 to 105.

--gpu-memdiff -125 This setting will modify the memory speed whenever the GPU clock speed is modified by --auto-gpu. In this example, it will set the memory speed to be 125 MHz lower than the GPU speed. This is useful for some cards like the 6970 which normally don't allow a bigger clock speed difference.

CHANGING SETTINGS: When setting values, it is important to realise that even though the driver may report the value was changed successfully, and the new card power profile information contains the values you set it to, that the card itself may refuse to use those settings. As the performance profile changes dynamically, querying the "current" value on the card can be wrong as well. So when changing values in NSGminer, after a pause of 1 second, it will report to you the current values where you should check that your change has taken. An example is that 6970 reference cards will accept low memory values but refuse to actually run those lower memory values unless they're within 125 of the engine clock speed. In that scenario, they usually set their real speed back to their default.

NSGminer reports the so-called "safe" range of whatever it is you are modifying when you ask to modify it on the fly. However, you can change settings to values outside this range. Despite this, the card can easily refuse to accept your changes, or worse, to accept your changes and then silently ignore them. So there is absolutely to know how far to/from where/to it can set things safely or otherwise, and there is nothing stopping you from at least trying to set them outside this range. Being very conscious of these possible failures is why NSGminer will report back the current values for you to examine how exactly the card has responded. Even within the reported range of accepted values by the card, it is very easy to crash just about any card, so it cannot use those values to determine what range to set. You have to provide something meaningful manually for NSGminer to work with through experimentation.

STARTUP / SHUTDOWN: When NSGminer starts up, it tries to read off the current profile information for clock and fan speeds and stores these values. When quitting NSGminer, it will then try to restore the original values. Changing settings outside of NSGminer while it's running may be reset to the startup NSGminer values when NSGminer shuts down because of this.

RPC API

For RPC API details see the API-README file

GPU DEVICE ISSUES and use of --gpu-map

GPUs mine with OpenCL software via the GPU device driver. This means you need to have both an OpenCL SDK installed, and the GPU device driver RUNNING (i.e. Xorg up and running configured for all devices that will mine on linux etc.) Meanwhile, the hardware monitoring that NSGminer offers for AMD devices relies on the ATI Display Library (ADL) software to work. OpenCL DOES NOT TALK TO THE ADL. There is no 100% reliable way to know that OpenCL devices are identical to the ADL devices, as neither give off the same information. NSGminer does its best to correlate these devices based on the order that OpenCL and ADL numbers them. It is possible that this will fail for the following reasons:

1. The device order is listed differently by OpenCL and ADL (rare), even if the number of devices is the same.
2. There are more OpenCL devices than ADL. OpenCL stupidly sees one GPU as two devices if you have two monitors connected to the one GPU.
3. There are more ADL devices than OpenCL. ADL devices include any ATI GPUs, including ones that can't mine, like some older R4xxx cards.

To cope with this, the ADVANCED option for --gpu-map is provided with NSGminer. DO NOT USE THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. The default will work the vast majority of the time unless you know you have a problem already.

To get useful information, start NSGminer with just the -n option. You will get output that looks like this:

[2012-04-25 13:17:34] CL Platform 0 vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [2012-04-25 13:17:34] CL Platform 0 name: AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing [2012-04-25 13:17:34] CL Platform 0 version: OpenCL 1.1 AMD-APP (844.4) [2012-04-25 13:17:34] Platform 0 devices: 3 [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 0 Tahiti [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 1 Tahiti [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 2 Cayman [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 0 AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 1 AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 2 AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 3 GPU devices max detected

Note the number of devices here match, and the order is the same. If devices 1 and 2 were different between Tahiti and Cayman, you could run NSGminer with: --gpu-map 2:1,1:2 And it would swap the monitoring it received from ADL device 1 and put it to OpenCL device 2 and vice versa.

If you have 2 monitors connected to the first device it would look like this:

[2012-04-25 13:17:34] Platform 0 devices: 4 [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 0 Tahiti [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 1 Tahiti [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 2 Tahiti [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 3 Cayman [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 0 AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 1 AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 2 AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series hardware monitoring enabled

To work around this, you would use: -d 0 -d 2 -d 3 --gpu-map 2:1,3:2

If you have an older card as well as the rest it would look like this:

[2012-04-25 13:17:34] Platform 0 devices: 3 [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 0 Tahiti [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 1 Tahiti [2012-04-25 13:17:34] 2 Cayman [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 0 AMD Radeon HD 4500 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 1 AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 2 AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series hardware monitoring enabled [2012-04-25 13:17:34] GPU 3 AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series hardware monitoring enabled

To work around this you would use: --gpu-map 0:1,1:2,2:3

FAQ

Q: Why can't NSGminer find lib even after I installed it from source code? A: On UNIX-like operating systems, you often need to run some command to reload its library caches such as "ldconfig" or similar. A couple of systems (such as Fedora) ship with /usr/local/lib missing from their library search path. In this case, you can usually add it like this: echo /usr/local/lib >/etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf Please note that if your libraries installed into lib64 instead of lib, you should use that in the ld.so config file above instead.

Q: NSGminer segfaults when I change my shell window size. A: Older versions of libncurses have a bug to do with refreshing a window after a size change. Upgrading to a new version of curses will fix it.

Q: Can I mine on servers from different networks (eg smartcoin and bitcoin) at the same time? A: No, NSGminer keeps a database of the block it's working on to ensure it does not work on stale blocks, and having different blocks from two networks would make it invalidate the work from each other.

Q: Can I change the intensity settings individually for each GPU? A: Yes, pass a list separated by commas such as -I d,4,9,9

Q: Can I put multiple pools in the config file? A: Yes, check the example.conf file. Alternatively, set up everything either on the command line or via the menu after startup and choose settings->write config file and the file will be loaded one each startup.

Q: The build fails with gcc is unable to build a binary. A: Remove the "-march=native" component of your CFLAGS as your version of GCC does not support it.

Q: The CPU usage is high. A: The ATI drivers after 11.6 have a bug that makes them consume 100% of one CPU core unnecessarily so downgrade to 11.6. Binding NSGminer to one CPU core on windows can minimise it to 100% (instead of more than one core). Driver version 11.11 on linux and 11.12 on windows appear to have fixed this issue. Note that later drivers may have an apparent return of high CPU usage. Try 'export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1' on Linux before starting NSGminer.

Q: Can you implement feature X? A: I can, but time is limited, and people who donate are more likely to get their feature requests implemented.

Q: My GPU hangs and I have to reboot it to get it going again? A: The more aggressively the mining software uses your GPU, the less overclock you will be able to run. You are more likely to hit your limits with NSGminer and you will find you may need to overclock your GPU less aggressively. The software cannot be responsible and make your GPU hang directly. If you simply cannot get it to ever stop hanging, try decreasing the intensity, and if even that fails, try changing to the poclbm kernel with -k poclbm, though you will sacrifice performance. NSGminer is designed to try and safely restart GPUs as much as possible, but NOT if that restart might actually crash the rest of the GPUs mining, or even the machine. It tries to restart them with a separate thread and if that separate thread dies, it gives up trying to restart any more GPUs.

Q: Work keeps going to my backup pool even though my primary pool hasn't failed? A: NSGminer checks for conditions where the primary pool is lagging and will pass some work to the backup servers under those conditions. The reason for doing this is to try its absolute best to keep the GPUs working on something useful and not risk idle periods. You can disable this behaviour with the option --failover-only.

Q: Is this a virus? A: NSGminer is being packaged with other trojan scripts and some antivirus software is falsely accusing nsgminer.exe as being the actual virus, rather than whatever it is being packaged with. If you installed NSGminer yourself, then you do not have a virus on your computer. Complain to your antivirus software company. They seem to be flagging even source code now from NSGminer as viruses, even though text source files can't do anything by themself.

Q: Can you modify the display to include more of one thing in the output and less of another, or can you change the quiet mode or can you add yet another output mode? A: Everyone will always have their own view of what's important to monitor. The defaults are very sane and I have very little interest in changing this any further.

Q: Can you change the autofan/autogpu to change speeds in a different manner? A: The defaults are sane and safe. I'm not interested in changing them further. The starting fan speed is set to 50% in auto-fan mode as a safety precaution.

Q: Why is my efficiency above/below 1.00? A: Efficiency simply means how many shares you return for the amount of bandwidth used. It does not correlate with efficient use of your hardware, and is a measure of a combination of hardware speed, block luck, pool design and other factors.

Q: What are the best parameters to pass for X pool/hardware/device. A: Virtually always, the DEFAULT parameters give the best results. Most user defined settings lead to worse performance. The ONLY thing most users should need to set is the Intensity.

Q: What happened to CPU mining? A: Being increasingly irrelevant for most users, and a maintenance issue, it is no longer under active development and will not be supported unless someone steps up to help maintain it. No binary builds supporting CPU mining will be released but CPU mining can be built into NSGminer when it is compiled.

Q: I upgraded NSGminer version and my hashrate suddenly dropped! A: No, you upgraded your SDK version unwittingly between upgrades of NSGminer and that caused your hashrate to drop. See the next question.

Q: I upgraded my ATI driver/SDK/NSGminer and my hashrate suddenly dropped! A: The hashrate performance in NSGminer is tied to the version of the ATI SDK that is installed only for the very first time NSGminer is run. This generates binaries that are used by the GPU every time after that. Any upgrades to the SDK after that time will have no effect on the binaries. However, if you install a fresh version of NSGminer, and have since upgraded your SDK, new binaries will be built. It is known that the 2.6 ATI SDK has a huge hashrate penalty on generating new binaries. It is recommended to not use this SDK at this time unless you are using an ATI 7xxx card that needs it.

Q: Which ATI SDK is the best for NSGminer? A: At the moment, versions 2.4 and 2.5 work the best. If you are forced to use the 2.6 SDK, the phatk kernel will perform poorly, while the diablo or my custom modified poclbm kernel are optimised for it.

Q: I have multiple SDKs installed, can I choose which one it uses? A: Run nsgminer with the -n option and it will list all the platforms currently installed. Then you can tell NSGminer which platform to use with --gpu-platform.

Q: GUI version? A: No. The RPC interface makes it possible for someone else to write one though.

Q: I'm having an issue. What debugging information should I provide? A: Start NSGminer with your regular commands and add -D -T --verbose and provide the full startup output and a summary of your hardware, operating system, ATI driver version and ATI stream version.

Q: NSGminer reports no devices or only one device on startup on Linux although I have multiple devices and drivers+SDK installed properly? A: Try "export DISPLAY=:0" before running NSGminer.

Q: My network gets slower and slower and then dies for a minute? A; Try the --net-delay option.

Q: How do I tune for P2Pool? A: P2Pool has very rapid expiration of work and new blocks, it is suggested you decrease intensity by 1 from your optimal value, and decrease GPU threads to 1 with -g 1. It is also recommended to use --failover-only since the work is effectively like a different block chain. If mining with a Mini Rig, it is worth adding the --bfl-range option.

Q: Are kernels from other mining software useable in NSGminer? A: No, the APIs are slightly different between the different software and they will not work.

Q: I run PHP on windows to access the API with the example miner.php. Why does it fail when php is installed properly but I only get errors about Sockets not working in the logs? A: http://us.php.net/manual/en/sockets.installation.php

Q: What is a PGA? A: At the moment, NSGminer supports 5 FPGAs: BitForce, Icarus, ModMiner, X6500, and ZTEX. They are Field-Programmable Gate Arrays that have been programmed to do Bitcoin mining. Since the acronym needs to be only 3 characters, the "Field-" part has been skipped.

Q: How do I get my BFL/Icarus/Lancelot/Cairnsmore device to auto-recognise? A: On Linux, if the /dev/ttyUSB* devices don't automatically appear, the only thing that needs to be done is to load the driver for them: BFL: sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x0403 product=0x6014 Icarus: sudo modprobe pl2303 vendor=0x067b product=0x230 Lancelot: sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x0403 product=0x6001 Cairnsmore: sudo modprobe ftdi_sio product=0x8350 vendor=0x0403 On windows you must install the pl2303 or ftdi driver required for the device pl2303: http://prolificusa.com/pl-2303hx-drivers/ ftdi: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

Q: I ran cgminer, and now NSGminer doesn't work! A: cgminer has its own non-standard implementations of the drivers for most USB devices, and disables the official drivers (on Windows, you did this manually using Zadig). Before you can use NSGminer, you will need to restore the original driver. With Linux, usually rebooting or re-plugging the device is sufficient.

Q: On Linux I can see the /dev/ttyUSB* devices for my ICA/BFL/MMQ FPGA, but NSGminer can't mine on them A: Make sure you have the required priviledges to access the /dev/ttyUSB* devices: sudo ls -las /dev/ttyUSB* will give output like: 0 crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2012-09-11 13:49 /dev/ttyUSB0 This means your account must have the group 'dialout' or root priviledges To permanently give your account the 'dialout' group: sudo usermod -G dialout -a whoami Then logout and back in again

Q: What is stratum and how do I use it? A: Stratum is a protocol designed to reduce resources for mining pools at the cost of keeping the miner in the dark and blindly transferring his mining authority to the pool. It is a return to the problems of the old centralized "getwork" protocol, but capable of scaling to hardware of any speed like the standard GBT protocol. If a pool uses stratum instead of GBT, NSGminer will automatically detect it and switch to the support as advertised if it can. Stratum uses direct TCP connections to the pool and thus it will NOT currently work through a http proxy but will work via a socks proxy if you need to use one. If you input the stratum port directly into your configuration, or use the special prefix "stratum+tcp://" instead of "http://", NSGminer will ONLY try to use stratum protocol mining.

Q: Why don't the statistics add up: Accepted, Rejected, Stale, Hardware Errors, Diff1 Work, etc. when mining greater than 1 difficulty shares? A: As an example, if you look at 'Difficulty Accepted' in the RPC API, the number of difficulty shares accepted does not usually exactly equal the amount of work done to find them. If you are mining at 8 difficulty, then you would expect on average to find one 8 difficulty share, per 8 single difficulty shares found. However, the number is actually random and converges over time, it is an average, not an exact value, thus you may find more or less than the expected average.