New features being released today

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Steve Sokolowski
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New features being released today

Post by Steve Sokolowski » Mon Sep 23, 2019 11:00 am

We're proud to announce several new features that will be released today!

New features

New in this release will be the "i=" password argument. "i=" allows customers to specify the type of miner they are using. The information on the type of ASIC will provide several benefits:
  • We found in recent testing that Antminer Z11 miners do not function well at low difficulties, so they would not submit shares, and therefore the mining server thought they were weak miners and was never able to assign them a higher difficulty. When "i=" is used, the mining servers will now assign the miner its optimal difficulty from the start, so that it submits one share every 30 seconds. This benefit will make sure that all miners will submit shares optimally from the start, and some miners which wouldn't submit shares at all will now function properly.
  • The power consumption of the miner is automatically entered from the manufacturer's database. If you overclock miners, you can override the power consumption with the "w=" argument.
  • The algorithm of the miner is determined automatically, even if you connect to the wrong port or are using the proxy server. The "a=" password argument is ignored when "i=" is used.
  • Most importantly, the hardware type will be recorded with every share, disconnect message, and worker status update in the database. This reason alone is enough to suggest that all customers using ASICs add the "i=" password argument as soon as possible. Once we get enough customers using it, and once enough time has passed, we'll be able to run queries against this massive amount of data to figure out which miners are performing suboptimally, and to fix bugs.
Second, this release will introduce x17 mining. This algorithm was requested by many customers. x13, x16r, and x15 mining will also be made available soon, but those are currently delayed because Chris is waiting on their coins to download their blocks.


Release process

Because this release adds tracking of hardware to many areas of the database, we need to create foreign key constraints to the miner hardware list. Creating foreign keys creates an index, which locks tables. The worker status history table has about a billion rows, so Chris anticipates that creating the indexes could extend the downtime by several minutes.

Once the system is back online, we will need to determine the optimal difficulty values for x17 mining, since we haven't been able to find what the multiplier is for x17. Compared to scrypt, for example, x11 mining difficulties are 65536 times harder. If any customers are aware of what this difficulty multiplier is or what a typical GPU for x17 uses for its difficulty, please reply.

Chris will perform this release in about 6 hours.
Last edited by Steve Sokolowski on Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Steve Sokolowski
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Re: New features being released today

Post by Steve Sokolowski » Tue Sep 24, 2019 7:40 am

The "i=" password argument, and the updated Tools page are now released and verified. Enjoy the easier setup! The documentation was updated with the password argument too.

x17's code is out on the servers, but it still being verified. We'll open the x17 ports within a day.
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Steve Sokolowski
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Re: New features being released today

Post by Steve Sokolowski » Tue Sep 24, 2019 9:56 am

x17 mining is now live. Thanks for your patience, and enjoy the mining!
cc4506
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Re: New features being released today

Post by cc4506 » Tue Sep 24, 2019 10:32 am

Steve, if you have a Z9 can you simply add "i=z9" ??
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Steve Sokolowski
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Re: New features being released today

Post by Steve Sokolowski » Tue Sep 24, 2019 11:50 am

cc4506 wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 10:32 am Steve, if you have a Z9 can you simply add "i=z9" ??
It depends on what the abbreviation for the Z9 is. You can find that out by using the Tools and selecting the Z9. It probably is "i=z9," but I don't know right here.
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Steve Sokolowski
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Re: New features being released today

Post by Steve Sokolowski » Tue Sep 24, 2019 12:47 pm

A further note: you may need to clear your cache to see the x17 live data. Otherwise, you'll see zero profitability for your mining and for the live coin status until the cache expires in 1 week.
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dnprod
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Re: New features being released today

Post by dnprod » Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:32 pm

i've set my i=l3_504 but dont expect to see optimum results. i use cgminer's quota/balanced config and not allocating 100% of the horsepower to the pool. a few percent is going to directly mine a fragile altcoin or two.
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dnprod
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Re: New features being released today

Post by dnprod » Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:39 pm

in the Live Mining Status area, when you click on a line for a miner you get the hashrate, difficulty, restart info and other stuff.
would it be possible to add to that output any i=, p=, and w= specified or presumed?
that way we can get feedback that our options were accepted and we didnt make any silly typos or anything.
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Steve Sokolowski
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Re: New features being released today

Post by Steve Sokolowski » Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:01 am

dnprod wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:39 pm in the Live Mining Status area, when you click on a line for a miner you get the hashrate, difficulty, restart info and other stuff.
would it be possible to add to that output any i=, p=, and w= specified or presumed?
that way we can get feedback that our options were accepted and we didnt make any silly typos or anything.
Constance was already assigned to do that, in fact. A display of what the miner enters for "i=" has already been added to the repository and the changes will be available in the next release!
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