This is a multi-threaded multi-pool GPU, FPGA and CPU miner with ATI GPU

monitoring, (over)clocking and fanspeed support for bitcoin and derivative

coins. Do not use on multiple block chains at the same time!

This code is provided entirely free of charge by the programmer in his spare

time so donations would be greatly appreciated. Please consider donating to the

address below.

Luke-Jr <luke-jr+bfgminer@utopios.org>

1QATWksNFGeUJCWBrN4g6hGM178Lovm7Wh

DOWNLOADS:

http://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/bfgminer

GIT TREE:

https://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer

Bug reports:

https://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer/issues

IRC Channel:

irc://irc.freenode.net/eligius

License: GPLv3. See COPYING for details.

READ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY BELOW FOR FIRST TIME USERS!

Dependencies:

curl dev library http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/

(libcurl4-openssl-dev)

curses dev library

(libncurses5-dev or libpdcurses on WIN32)

pkg-config http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config

jansson http://www.digip.org/jansson/

(jansson is included in-tree and not necessary)

yasm 1.0.1+ http://yasm.tortall.net/

(yasm is optional, gives assembly routines for CPU mining)

AMD APP SDK http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK

(This sdk is mandatory for GPU mining)

AMD ADL SDK http://developer.amd.com/sdks/ADLSDK

(This sdk is mandatory for ATI GPU monitoring & clocking)

libudev headers

(This is only required for FPGA auto-detection and is linux only)

libusb headers

(This is only required for ZTEX support)

BFGMiner specific configuration options:

--enable-cpumining Build with cpu mining support(default disabled)

--disable-opencl Override detection and disable building with opencl

--disable-adl Override detection and disable building with adl

--enable-bitforce Compile support for BitForce FPGAs(default disabled)

--enable-icarus Compile support for Icarus Board(default disabled)

--enable-modminer Compile support for ModMiner FPGAs(default disabled)

--enable-ztex Compile support for Ztex Board(default disabled)

Basic *nix build instructions:

To build with GPU mining support:

Install AMD APP sdk, ideal version (see FAQ!) - no official place to

install it so just keep track of where it is if you're not installing

the include files and library files into the system directory.

(Do NOT install the ati amd sdk if you are on nvidia.)

To build with GPU monitoring & clocking support:

Extract the AMD ADL SDK, latest version - there is also no official

place for these files. Copy all the *.h files in the "include"

directory into BFGMiner's ADL_SDK directory.

The easiest way to install the ATI AMD SPP sdk on linux is to actually put it

into a system location. Then building will be simpler. Download the correct

version for either 32 bit or 64 bit from here:

http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK/downloads/Pages/default.aspx

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

Then:

sudo su

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

To actually build:

./autogen.sh # only needed if building from git repo

CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure

or if you haven't installed the ati files in system locations:

CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native -I<path to AMD APP include>" LDFLAGS="-L<path to AMD APP lib/x86_64> ./configure

make

If it finds the opencl files it will inform you with

"OpenCL: FOUND. GPU mining support enabled."

Basic WIN32 build instructions (LIKELY OUTDATED INFO. requires mingw32):

./autogen.sh # only needed if building from git repo

rm -f mingw32-config.cache

MINGW32_CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -msse2" mingw32-configure

make

./mknsis.sh

Native WIN32 build instructions: see windows-build.txt

---

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

Usage: . [-atDdGCgIKklmpPQqrRsTouvwOchnV]

Options for both config file and command line:

--api-allow Allow API access (if enabled) only to the given list of [W:]IP[/Prefix] address[/subnets]

This overrides --api-network and you must specify 127.0.0.1 if it is required

W: in front of the IP address gives that address privileged access to all api commands

--api-description Description placed in the API status header (default: BFGMiner version)

--api-groups API one letter groups G:cmd:cmd[,P:cmd:*...]

See API-README for usage

--api-listen Listen for API requests (default: disabled)

By default any command that does not just display data returns access denied

See --api-allow to overcome this

--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

--benchmark Run BFGMiner in benchmark mode - produces no shares

--debug|-D Enable debug output

--expiry|-E <arg> Upper bound on how many seconds after getting work we consider a share from it stale (default: 120)

--failover-only Don't leak work to backup pools when primary pool is lagging

--kernel-path|-K <arg> Specify a path to where bitstream and kernel files are (default: "/usr/local/bin")

--load-balance Change multipool strategy from failover to even load balance

--log|-l <arg> Interval in seconds between log output (default: 5)

--monitor|-m <arg> Use custom pipe cmd for output messages

--net-delay Impose small delays in networking to not overload slow routers

--no-longpoll Disable X-Long-Polling support

--no-pool-disable Do not automatically disable pools that continually reject shares

--no-submit-stale Don't submit shares if they are detected as stale

--pass|-p <arg> Password for bitcoin JSON-RPC server

--per-device-stats Force verbose mode and output per-device statistics

--protocol-dump|-P Verbose dump of protocol-level activities

--queue|-Q <arg> Minimum number of work items to have queued (0 - 10) (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|-r <arg> Number of times to retry before giving up, if JSON-RPC call fails (-1 means never) (default: -1)

--retry-pause|-R <arg> Number of seconds to pause, between retries (default: 5)

--rotate <arg> 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 <arg> Upper bound on time spent scanning current work, in seconds (default: 60)

--sched-start <arg> Set a time of day in HH:MM to start mining (a once off without a stop time)

--sched-stop <arg> Set a time of day in HH:MM to stop mining (will quit without a start time)

--sharelog <arg> Append share log to file

--shares <arg> Quit after mining N shares (default: unlimited)

--socks-proxy <arg> Set socks4 proxy (host:port)

--syslog Use system log for output messages (default: standard error)

--temp-cutoff <arg> Temperature where a device will be automatically disabled, one value or comma separated list (default: 95)

--text-only|-T Disable ncurses formatted screen output

--url|-o <arg> URL for bitcoin JSON-RPC server

--user|-u <arg> Username for bitcoin JSON-RPC server

--verbose Log verbose output to stderr as well as status output

--userpass|-O <arg> Username:Password pair for bitcoin JSON-RPC server

Options for command line only:

--config|-c <arg> Load a JSON-format configuration file

See example.conf for an example configuration.

--help|-h Print this message

--version|-V Display version and exit

GPU only options:

--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

--device|-d <arg> Select device to use, (Use repeat -d for multiple devices, default: all)

--disable-gpu|-G Disable GPU mining even if suitable devices exist

--gpu-threads|-g <arg> Number of threads per GPU (1 - 10) (default: 2)

--gpu-dyninterval <arg> Set the refresh interval in ms for GPUs using dynamic intensity (default: 7)

--gpu-engine <arg> GPU engine (over)clock range in Mhz - one value, range and/or comma separated list (e.g. 850-900,900,750-850)

--gpu-fan <arg> GPU fan percentage range - one value, range and/or comma separated list (e.g. 25-85,85,65)

--gpu-map <arg> Map OpenCL to ADL device order manually, paired CSV (e.g. 1:0,2:1 maps OpenCL 1 to ADL 0, 2 to 1)

--gpu-memclock <arg> Set the GPU memory (over)clock in Mhz - one value for all or separate by commas for per card.

--gpu-memdiff <arg> Set a fixed difference in clock speed between the GPU and memory in auto-gpu mode

--gpu-powertune <arg> 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 <arg> Set the GPU voltage in Volts - one value for all or separate by commas for per card.

--intensity|-I <arg> Intensity of GPU scanning (d or -10 -> 10, default: d to maintain desktop interactivity)

--kernel|-k <arg> Override kernel to use (diablo, poclbm, phatk or diakgcn) - one value or comma separated

--ndevs|-n Enumerate number of detected GPUs and exit

--no-restart Do not attempt to restart GPUs that hang

--temp-hysteresis <arg> Set how much the temperature can fluctuate outside limits when automanaging speeds (default: 3)

--temp-overheat <arg> Overheat temperature when automatically managing fan and GPU speeds (default: 85)

--temp-target <arg> Target temperature when automatically managing fan and GPU speeds (default: 75)

--vectors|-v <arg> Override detected optimal vector (1, 2 or 4) - one value or comma separated list

--worksize|-w <arg> Override detected optimal worksize - one value or comma separated list

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

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

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

By default, BFGMiner will scan for autodetected FPGAs unless at least one

-S is specified for that driver. If you specify -S and still want BFGMiner

to scan, you must also use "-S auto". If you want to prevent BFGMiner 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.

On linux <arg> is usually of the format /dev/ttyUSBn

On windows <arg> 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"

For other FPGA details see the FPGA-README

CPU only options (deprecated, not included in binaries!):

--algo|-a <arg> 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

sse4_64 SSE4.1 64 bit implementation for x86_64 machines (default: sse2_64)

--cpu-threads|-t <arg> Number of miner CPU threads (default: 4)

--enable-cpu|-C Enable CPU mining with other mining (default: no CPU mining if other devices exist)

---

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ON USAGE:

After saving configuration from the menu, you do not need to give BFGMiner 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:

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

Single pool, dedicated miner:

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

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

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

Multiple pool, dedicated miner:

bfgminer -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:

bfgminer -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:

bfgminer -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

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

[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

[P]ause: 5

[W]rite config file

D gives you:

Toggle: [D]ebug [N]ormal [S]ilent [V]erbose [R]PC debug

[L]og interval [C]lear

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

---

Also many issues and FAQs are covered in the forum thread

dedicated to this program,

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=28402.0

The output line shows the following:

(5s):1713.6 (avg):1707.8 Mh/s | Q:301 A:729 R:8 HW:0 E:242% 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

Q: The number of requested (Queued) work items from the pools

A: The number of Accepted shares

R: The number of Rejected shares

HW: The number of HardWare errors

E: The Efficiency defined as number of shares returned / work item

U: The Utility defined as the number of shares / minute

GPU 1: 73.5C 2551RPM | 427.3/443.0Mh/s | A:8 R:0 HW:0 U:4.39/m

Each column is as follows:

Temperature (if supported)

Fanspeed (if supported)

A 5 second exponentially decaying average hash rate

An all time average hash rate

The number of accepted shares

The number of rejected shares

The number of hardware erorrs

The utility defines as the number of shares / minute

The BFGMiner status line shows:

TQ: 1 ST: 1 SS: 0 DW: 0 NB: 1 LW: 8 GF: 1 RF: 1

TQ is Total Queued work items.

ST is STaged work items (ready to use).

SS is Stale Shares discarded (detected and not submitted so don't count as rejects)

DW is Discarded Work items (work from block no longer valid to work on)

NB is New Blocks detected on the network

LW is Locally generated Work items

GF is Getwork Fail Occasions (server slow to provide work)

RF is Remote Fail occasions (server slow to accept work)

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.

---

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 in equal amounts to all the pools specified. If any

pool falls idle, the rest will take up the slack keeping the miner busy.

---

LOGGING

BFGMiner 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:

./bfgminer -o xxx -u yyy -p zzz

if you use

./bfgminer -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.

If you start BFGMiner 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:

./bfgminer --sharelog 50 -o xxx -u yyy -p zzz 50>share.log

./bfgminer --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 BFGMiner

comes through use of the ATI Display Library. As such, it only supports ATI

GPUs. Even if ADL support is successfully built into BFGMiner, unless the card

and driver supports it, no GPU monitoring/settings will be available.

BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner 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.

AUTO MODES:

There are two "auto" modes in BFGMiner, --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

significanly 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 engine 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, BFGMiner will raise the clock speed.

If at any time you manually set an even higher clock speed successfully in

BFGMiner, 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), BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner, 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.

BFGMiner 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

BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner to work with through experimentation.

STARTUP / SHUTDOWN:

When BFGMiner starts up, it tries to read off the current profile information

for clock and fan speeds and stores these values. When quitting BFGMiner, it

will then try to restore the original values. Changing settings outside of

BFGMiner while it's running may be reset to the startup BFGMiner values when

BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner 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. BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner.

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 BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner 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: BFGMiner 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, BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner.

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 BFGMiner

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. BFGMiner 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: BFGMiner 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: BFGMiner is being packaged with other trojan scripts and some antivirus

software is falsely accusing bfgminer.exe as being the actual virus, rather

than whatever it is being packaged with. If you installed BFGMiner yourself,

then you do not have a virus on your computer. Complain to your antivirus

software company.

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 100%?

A: Efficiency simply means how many shares you return for the amount of work

you request. 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 BFGMiner when it is compiled.

Q: I upgraded BFGMiner version and my hashrate suddenly dropped!

A: No, you upgraded your SDK version unwittingly between upgrades of BFGMiner

and that caused your hashrate to drop. See the next question.

Q: I upgraded my ATI driver/SDK/BFGMiner and my hashrate suddenly dropped!

A: The hashrate performance in BFGMiner is tied to the version of the ATI SDK

that is installed only for the very first time BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner, 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 BFGMiner?

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 bfgminer with the -n option and it will list all the platforms currently

installed. Then you can tell BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner 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: BFGMiner 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 BFGMiner.

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.

Q: Are kernels from other mining software useable in BFGMiner?

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, BFGMiner supports 4 FPGAs: BitForce, Icarus, ModMiner, 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.

---

This code is provided entirely free of charge by the programmer in his spare

time so donations would be greatly appreciated. Please consider donating to the

address below.

Luke-Jr <luke-jr+bfgminer@utopios.org>

1QATWksNFGeUJCWBrN4g6hGM178Lovm7Wh