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GPU Mining with GUIMiner in Windows What You’ll Need

  • GPU (for this particular tutorial) - â€œThe workhorse. Think of it as the miner with a pickaxe or the heavy drilling machinery.”

Radeon GPUs are recommended over Nvidia, they are much more efficient at mining. You can still mine with an Nvidia card, but your hashrate (essentially how fast your card can process the algorithm) will be lower. Check out this link to compare the expected hashrate for scrypt mining on various hardware:

Note:

The link says ‘Litecoin’ hardware, but it applies for MinCoin as well as they are both based on the same scrypt algorithm.

For AMD cards:

  1. Ensure you have updated to latest drivers for your card:
    http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
  2. You will also need to download the AMD SDK to run GUIMiner, can be found here:
    http://developer.amd.com/tools/hc/AMDAPPSDK/downloads/Pages/default.aspx

For Nvidia cards:

  1. Ensure you have updated to the latest drivers for your card:
    http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us.
  2. You will also need to download and install the Nvidia CUDA toolkit to run GUIMiner, can be found here:
    https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads

  • Computer with Windows (for this particular tutorial)
  • MinCoin Client

Download the client from
min-coin.org
.

For Windows, you’ll want to click on one of the top two links.

Once finished downloading, install and run. The first time you fire up the client it will need to connect to the network, and download the blockchain. While it’s downloading, a green bar on the bottom will show its progress.

mnc_3_downloadblock.jpg

Once finished, a green check mark will appear in the bottom right of the window.

mnc_3_finishedblock.jpg

  • Mining software – “The Mining Foreman: Instructs the miners on where and how to mine”

For the sake of simplicity, we will download the latest ‘GUIMiner – scrypt‘ client. Here’s a link to the forum post at bitcointalk.org;

mnc_2.jpg

Click on one of the highlighted download links.

Extract the .zip file wherever you wish.

 

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Setting Up

So, to recap, by this point we have done the following:

  1. Downloaded latest drivers for your GPU, as well as AMD SDK, or Nvidia CUDA depending on your card’s make.
  2. Downloaded and installed the MinCoin wallet client from min-coin.org.
  3. Allowed the blockchain to fully update within the wallet client (green progress bar at bottom, followed by green check mark in bottom right).
  4. Downloaded and extracted the GUIMiner client.

Now it’s time to configure the GUIMiner client. Locate the ‘guiminer.exe’ executable in the directory you extracted to and start it up.

Note: If GUIMiner fails to start, you likely have an issue with dependencies, IE, either the AMD SDK or Nvidia CUDA version not being installed, or being incompatible with your current driver version or the current version of GUIMiner. For more information and assistance please see the GUIMiner thread here. This sort of issue happens more often with older model cards than new.

Your screen should look something like this:

mnc_4_guiminer_startup1.jpg

Now, pat yourself on the back for getting this far. You now have a choice to make.

Solo Mining vs. Pool Mining

You can choose to go it alone, and test your luck, or you can join a pool, where many miners combine their collective computational power to find blocks together and split the rewards. Usually in pools miners are given shares of a particular block based on how much computational power they put towards solving that block.

With MinCoin, there is a block discovered on the average of every 1 minute across the network, which rewards 2 coins. This amounts to a total of 2880 coins per day allotted to different miners.

If you solo mine, of course you get all the rewards, but depending on the network difficulty, tens of minutes or even hours could go by before you find anything. It all depends on the rate at which your hardware can solve the scrypt algorithms of MinCoin, and the network difficulty.

Well how does network difficulty work?

As with other crypto-currencies, the network difficulty is a scaling number that acts to keep the average block discovery time pegged to a desired interval.

Think of it as a flood gate that rises and falls, constantly adjusting up and down to keep the same amount of water flowing through. If there’s a drought (low network hashing/computing power), the gate will lower itself to maintain the same constant rate of flow (difficulty decrease). If there’s a flood (high network hashing/computing power) it will raise itself likewise, to always maintain the same water flow over the top.

If there is a lot of ‘hashing’ or computational power on the network working on the algorithm, the network difficulty will scale up to keep the average block discovery time as close as possible to the currency’s stated block interval. Likewise, if there isn’t enough power on the network, the difficulty will drop to accommodate.

For MinCoin, the difficulty ‘retargets’ itself on the average of every 60 blocks, which at 1 block per minute, works out to 1 hour.

I would recommend checking the hardware guide again, to see what you can expect for a hashrate from your card:

https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison

Personally, I would recommend a pool just for the consistency of reward, but I will show you how to mine both ways regardless.

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Solo Mining

Before we get back to GUIMiner, there are a couple of things we need to do.

Firstly, we need to create another shortcut to the MinCoin Wallet, preferably on the desktop although it doesn’t really matter. If you created one when you installed initially, just copy and paste it.

Once you’ve created the new shortcut, it would be wise to rename it to: ‘Mincoin – server.’ This is just so you don’t confuse it with your other MinCoin shortcut.

Right click on the new ‘Mincoin – server’ shortcut you just created, and click properties.

In the target field, after the path to the executable, we will type (as pictured below): -server

mnc_5_servershortcut.jpg

Essentially, what we are doing is setting up the MinCoin wallet as the server for mining, if you didn’t already figure that out.

Though we aren’t finished configuring the MinCoin Wallet yet! If you tried to start it now you would get the following error:

mnc_6_walleterror.jpg

So, we will oblige the cranky program and do what it says. Navigate to the following directory on your computer: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\mincoin

Note: You will have to unhide the ‘AppData’ folder. Check this link for instructions:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/show-hidden-files

We will have to create a file called mincoin.conf in this directory. But, what the heck is a .conf file, and how do you make one? Have no fear! I will show you how.

Essentially, just create a plain text document, you dont even have to name it if you don’t want to. It can be deleted after we create the .conf file anyways.

In the file all you need to type is:

rpcuser=user

rpcpassword=pass

mnc_7_minconf-copy.jpg

Now, having typed that, go to ‘File’ and ‘save as.’

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Now, having typed that, go to ‘File’ and ‘save as.’

mnc_7_minconf2.jpg

Make sure you select ‘All Files’ in the ‘Save as type’ field. Then type ‘mincoin.conf’ as the filename. Viola! We now have our mincoin.conf file.

Now go back to the desktop and open up your ‘Mincoin – server’ shortcut. The Mincoin Wallet client should open up without a hitch!

Now, we need to get back to GUIMiner – scrypt. If you closed it, head back to the directory where you unzipped it and open it back up.

Tip: It doesn’t actually close if you close it from the taskbar. Check ‘hidden icons’ to see if it’s still running.

You should be back at this screen:

mnc_4_guiminer_startup1.jpg

Now we’re going to fill in the necessary information.

mnc_8_guiminer_filled.jpg

Now obviously the username and password are what we filled in earlier in the mincoin.conf file:

Username: user

Password: pass

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Using ‘localhost’ as the host simply points to your machine, as does the port ’9335.’

With regards to the graphics cards settings, you might have to tweak them a bit. The good thing about the GUIMiner as opposed to the command prompt interface is that it comes with presets. If you have any of these Radeon cards, you essentially have a decent setup from which you can improve on. Otherwise, you might have to guess, especially in the case of Nvidia.

It might be helpful to once again refer to this website for data on possible configurations for your card:

https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison

If you are unable to find specific settings for your card there, give Google a shot, you can probably find at least something that can help. If you still can’t find settings, try experimenting. Always start the intensity low and see how far you can push it while keeping your miner stable.

Once you click ‘start’ you should be off and running! Your k/hash rate will be displayed in the bottom right.

How will I know when I find a block?

When you find a block solo mining, the MinCoins will be sent to your local wallet. If you check the console in GUIMiner (View > Show console), you should see “Found block for pool 0.” When you see ‘New block detected on network’ a block was discovered by another miner. With Mincoin, as stated before, this happens about 1 time per minute.

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Pool Mining

The setup is obviously a little bit different when you are mining for a pool. First, you’ll need to actually find a MinCoin pool. At the moment there are two solid pools running either of which will probably be suitable for your needs.

– Solid pool run by BigVern.

– Another great pool with a similar setup.

The setup for both websites is nearly identical, so I will walk you through the process.

Now, whichever one you chose, they both have the same payout system, known as ‘Pay Per Last N Shares,’ or ‘PPLNS.’ To be honest, to try and condense how it works into a few short sentences would probably do it injustice, so check out this link and try to wrap your head around it:

http://mincoinpool.com/about

First, obviously you’ll need to make yourself an account. Click on register at the top of the page, follow the typical account creation procedure. Be sure to write down your pin, it will be important to withdraw funds from the pool later.

Once you’ve created your account go ahead and login.

In order to mine for the pool you’ve selected, you will need to set up a ‘worker.’ Navigate to ‘My Account,’ then to ‘My Workers.’

mnc_9_vircurpool.jpg

Now you’ll need set up a worker. By default, on both websites, you start with 1 worker. It’s important to remember that this information, both the worker name and the password, pass unencrypted from your miner to the pool. Remember to use a different password for your worker(s) than you used for your pool account.

In this example, the worker name is ‘RandomSchlub.1′ and the password is ’1234.’

mnc_9_vircurpool2-copy.jpg

Tip: If you have multiple mining rigs, you can assign a different worker to each one, so you can monitor their performance remotely from the pool webpage.

Ok, so now we have a worker. How do we actually make him mine?

Before we switch back into GUIMiner, we need to get the host and port information from the mining pool website. Both VirCurPool and Mincoinpool have a page titled ‘Getting Started,’ which contains all relevant connection information.

mnc_10_vircurstarted.jpg

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Now we need to start GUIMiner and enter the relevant worker, host, and port information specific to the pool chosen. An example is pictured below for VirCurPool:

mnc_11_guiminer.jpg

At this point everything is basically ready to go. You obviously will want to play around with the GPU settings (Thread Concurrency, Worksize, Intensity) to get the best k/hash rate while remaining stable. Go ahead and hit start. You should be off and mining!

 

 

*The Above MinCoin Mining Guide Is Courtesy Of minemincoin.com

 

Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

@Noctis, it is technically possible to mine with the wallet.  The best way to do it, however, is to use cgminer (in GUIminer-scrypt if you like) and a mincoin.conf file.  Essentially, you create a file called mincoin.conf, which should look something like this:

 

listen=1
daemon=1
server=1
rpcuser=YOUR_USER_NAME_HERE
rpcpassword=YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE
rpcallowip=192.168.*.*
rpcport=9335
port=9334
 
You can modify the ports if you like, as well as the rpcallowip.  If you're LAN isn't 192.168.x.x, change it to 10.x.x.x, or whatever yours is (unless you plan on solo mining from computers not on your local network.  Then you would allow all.  The asterisk (*) means any value.  So 192.168.*.* means 192.168.1.1 -> 192.168.255.255
 
Whatever value you set for your rprcport would be the port in cgminer.  Host would be localhost.  Username and password are obvious.  The rest of your settings depend on your graphics card, and your extra flags should be played with to reduce stales.  The image below is my setup, but I do not solo mine MNC anymore, because I only have ~ 1.3Mhash/s.  If you want to solo mine, you should have a high hashrate, and make sure you get your settings exactly right to prevent stales.
 
Make a shortcut from your wallet qt and add the extension -server at the end.  (The -datadir is just something I use to change the location of the blockchain.  I use SSDs for my OS, and don't want to waste gigabytes on my SSD for coin blockchains, so I use a different hard drive for my data directory.  And, the data directory, whether in your AppData/Roaming/mincoin or elsewhere, is where you store your mincoin.conf file.  When you launch this shortcut, mincoin launches as a server, provided mincoin.conf is properly configured.  After launching, run cgminer in GUIminer-scrypt and enter the information and you'll begin mining.  However, you won't see shares increase rapidly as you do in pools.  When you solo mine, one share = 1 block found.  At 1000KHash/s, it would take ~ .45 days aka 10.8 hours to mine one block (2 coins).  So, you can do this and not have to worry about pool fees, but if you aren't setup properly with a high hashrate, flags, overclocking, etc, you run the risk of wasting 11 hours and getting a stale (in which case you get 0 coins).  Now, luck comes into play, so instead of 11 hours, it could take 4, but it could also take 17.  If you mine for a week, however, it should start to average itself out.  PM me if any of this doesn't make sense.
E4lsbn1.jpg
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