ZCash/ZEC GPU mining

[thilanliyan]

I just experimented with the -k option on my dual 480 rig with an 8350. Simply adding four zec's so "-k zec zec zec zec" increased my hashrate another 5 - 10 hashes where I'm closer to 40 Sol per 480 now and GPU utilization seems better according to GPU-Z. This is in addition to the 14 Sol/s running with nheqminer with a -T 7 set. So altogether with about 90 Sol off this one box. I'll have to experiment with other boxes with single or dual core CPU's (not sure if the -k can be used) but this is a pretty significant boost.

Is that for the Genoil miner?

 

[thilanliyan]

I haven't tried it with v.5, but I tried with an earlier version. While it brought the GPU Usage up to 100 percent, the sum of S/s of the two instances didn't add up to just the one running.

Is the total S/s of two Genoil v.5 > just one for you?

I think you're right. The speed also seems very inconsistent. I switched off the 2nd instance.
The miner is definitely not that stable. Hopefully Claymore releases soon.

 

[EightySix Four]

Claymore said 2-3 days for his miner. He's targeting 100S/s on a 390x.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Damn, that's good. I hope Claymore releases for both Linux and Windows!

 

[Bigbadwu]

What drivers are you guys using for amd gpus?

 

[Madpacket]

Is that for the Genoil miner?

Yes.


Guys you'll need to create a restart batch script. Genoil will eventually fail where miners go to 0.5Mh.

I haven't done this yet but will soon. More info here.


https://github.com/Genoil/ZECMiner/issues/50

 

[Madpacket]

What drivers are you guys using for amd gpus?

16.10.2 and 16.10.3.

 

[Bigbadwu]

16.10.2 and 16.10.3.

Thanks, will try them out.

 

[Madpacket]

Just a small update. Created the restart scripts and adjusted timing accordingly for 8 different miners. Have a few left but already seeing improvements.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I am using an older version of Genoil's miner for now which does not seem to have the issue? Interesting workaround though.

.5 just automatically crashes on my end so I can't use it.

btw I'm using whatever driver Win10 14955 is pushing out automatically, which is dated 9/16/2016. Is that 16.6? I'm not 100% sure, the last driver also said it was 16.6 in Radeon Settings so . . .

Under Linux I'm using 15.12 since all I have is Hawaii anyway.

 

[n0x1ous]

Trying to use nheq for CPU only on an fx8350 and have only setting as -t 6. its using 90% of cpu but getting 0 sol/s ???

 

[Madpacket]

Trying to use nheq for CPU only on an fx8350 and have only setting as -t 6. its using 90% of cpu but getting 0 sol/s ???

Weird. I'm getting between 14 - 16 Sol with an 8350 set to "-T 7" with nheq while mining with Genoil on a couple 480's.

https://imgur.com/gallery/gDQjq

For reference here is my command line parameters:

"nheqminer_zcash.exe -l USA -u <mining_address> -t 7"

 

[n0x1ous]

Weird. I'm getting between 15 - 16 Sol with an 8350 set to "-T 7" with nheq while mining with Genoil on a couple 480's.

https://imgur.com/gallery/gDQjq

the ONLY flag im using on nheq is the -t. should there be something else? Also only getting 30 each out of a 290 and 480. what are the good tweaks to get it up?

Would you share your .bat settings for both?

 

[Madpacket]

the ONLY flag im using on nheq is the -t. should there be something else? Also only getting 30 each out of a 290 and 480. what are the good tweaks to get it up?

Would you share your .bat settings for both?

Sure. For genoil 0.5 I use the following:

"genoil.exe -c us1-zcash.flypool.org:3333 -u <address>.<worker> -p z -k zec zec zec zec"

Please note I'm running flashed Nitro OC's (Boyise 29mh ROM) at stock voltages. Some of my 480's only mine at 25Mh with the same BIOS but in different rigs. There's little consistency but I think the CPU makes a biggest difference. I noticed my best miners are running with CPU's with at least 4 cores (or 2 cores with hyperthreading). With my single core Sempron's and dual core celerons my hash rates are much lower using Genoil with 480's.

EDIT:

Here's my restart script. Just place the restart batch file in the same folder where your start script resides.

"
:restart
start "" cmd /C start.bat
TIMEOUT /T 1200
taskkill /f /im genoil.exe
goto restart
"

Note I change the timeout values depending on the stability of the rig. On my 6 card rigs I have this turned down to 240 seconds.

 

[Madpacket]

I should also state I'm getting 33 Sol with my 5930K CPU at 4Ghz and about 75-80 Sol with dual Fury Nitro's at stock speeds. As you can see there's some pretty wild swings in performance.

 

[thilanliyan]

What are your thoughts on ZEC vs Eth? Hold ZEC or hold Eth for the long term?

 

[Madpacket]

I am using an older version of Genoil's miner for now which does not seem to have the issue? Interesting workaround though.

.5 just automatically crashes on my end so I can't use it.

btw I'm using whatever driver Win10 14955 is pushing out automatically, which is dated 9/16/2016. Is that 16.6? I'm not 100% sure, the last driver also said it was 16.6 in Radeon Settings so . . .

Under Linux I'm using 15.12 since all I have is Hawaii anyway.

0.41 seems a little more stable than 0.5 but I noticed better speeds using the -k flag in some rigs. Restart scripts are a hack but seem to be doing the trick.

 

[Madpacket]

What are your thoughts on ZEC vs Eth? Hold ZEC or hold Eth for the long term?

Good question. Given Ethereum will have the same zero knowledge proof support eventually I see ZCash's as a short term miner/trader's paradise. It's most likely temporary.

Ethereum is still infinitely more useful long term and I'm still hodling.

However given this is crypto anything can happen but personally I've just been collecting ZEC and selling on Polo for BTC / Ether. I may keep a bit in case something even crazier happens to the price but so far I'm just mining/selling as it's more profitable than Ether.

I figure once Claymore releases a proper dual miner (Ether/ZEC) and the ZEC reward increases the price of ZEC will start to plummet, but that's just a guess.

 

[thilanliyan]

I figure once Claymore releases a proper dual miner (Ether/ZEC) and the ZEC reward increases the price of ZEC will start to plummet, but that's just a guess.

I'm afraid that Eth will drop once Claymore releases the ZEC miner and people move their hashes to zcash...that would suck for us Eth holders. What do you think?

 

[Madpacket]

I'm afraid that Eth will drop once Claymore releases the ZEC miner and people move their hashes to zcash...that would suck for us Eth holders. What do you think?

It's already dropped (hashrate dramatically and price of ether). I suspect this is temporary until Claymore releases a dual miner forcing the hashrates back up and likely the price to go with it.

With the hashrate of Ether being where it's at now, it's actually more profitable to mine Ether now than it was before zcash took over.

Compare the drop in hashrate vs the price.

http://www.coinwarz.com/difficulty-charts/ethereum-difficulty-chart

So if you've missed this ZEC train or don't care to get on it you're still doing better this week than last

I still have two dedicated Ether miners but moved over 85% of my hashing power to ZEC for now.

 

[thilanliyan]

I thought he said his miner will be ZEC only at first?
I've also been doing the same as you with ZEC, and just using Nicehash so I get paid in BTC...has been profitable so far for my modest 2x290 comp.

 

[Madpacket]

I thought he said his miner will be ZEC only at first?
I've also been doing the same as you with ZEC, and just using Nicehash so I get paid in BTC...has been profitable so far for my modest 2x290 comp.

Yes at first *ZEC only* is what he said. Given both algorithms can be mined simultaneously (at least on GCN hardware) he will release a dual miner afterwards. Perhaps when his ZEC only miner comes out people will switch even faster but the Ethereum Blockchain difficulty is almost half already even with all the ZEC mining stability issues. If the price of Ether stays stable it could be pretty profitable to mine Ether with a low difficulty. The ZEC difficulty will also with the increase with the switch so payouts should be less (even though the schedule is to increase payouts soon).

Anyway it's all a balance and we just have to keep our eyes on what's most profitable, and switch accordingly. Just keep your eye on "https://whattomine.com/".

I will say if you're going long on Ether you're best off mining ZEC and trading for Ether right now as it's currently more profitable to do so.

It's pretty crazy though. Mining ZEC is more power efficient and is currently 4x more profitable than Ether. So for someone like me who spends upwards of $800 CAD on hydro a month this a welcome change and helping me speed up my ROI.

If this Zcash craze continues expect to see another shortage of Radeon's soon

 

[n0x1ous]

Does available cpu threads matter for using the -k zec zec zec zec? tried it that way and CPU (dual core celeron) wento 100% usage for 15 minutes and locked up. I am getting 150 sol/s out of my 6x480s @ 1100/2200. any way to improve on that?

Also does getting the nheq miner going on the CPU require using nicehash pool? Im using nanopool for everything else.....maybe thats my problem..

 

[Kozlow]

Here's my restart script. Just place the restart batch file in the same folder where your start script resides.

"
:restart
start "" cmd /C start.bat
TIMEOUT /T 1200
taskkill /f /im genoil.exe
goto restart
"

Note I change the timeout values depending on the stability of the rig. On my 6 card rigs I have this turned down to 240 seconds.

When it restarts Genoil it opens a new cmd window a leaves the previous one open. After a while I get a bunch of open windows.

Does yours do that?

 

[DrMrLordX]

What are your thoughts on ZEC vs Eth? Hold ZEC or hold Eth for the long term?

I mine ZEC to sell for ETH directly on Poloniex. ZEC in the long term is shaky. It's been as high as $1500 (actually higher?) and as low as ~$450 since trading opened up on Oct. 28th. After the dip to $450 it spiked back up again, and now it's around $950. The volatility is extreme. So I mine out what I can for a much greater profit than what I could get mining ETH directly, even with the huge drop in difficulty.

Right now I have two machines mining ZEC and one mining ETH (I haven't converted it yet, but I will soon). The one mining ETH is (according to nanopool) averaging 110 MH/s for a monthly profit of $217. The other two machines are currently averaging a combined (again, according to nanopool) solution rate of 148.9 S/s producing a monthly profit of $813. Even when ZEC was down to $450 it was still a tad bit more profitable to mine than ETH.

With the long-term prospects of ETH being as technologically-sound as they are (plus PoS which should be very interesting), to me it makes the most sense to mine ZEC and sell for ETH. ZEC is a great proof-of-concept of zk-SNARK/zero-knowledge proofs, but once ETH incorporates that into their own blockchain, there will be no real draw. The "dark money" players that love bitcoin are mostly the ones that seem to be pushing up the price of ZEC right now. They and the ETC guys.