Hey guys,
Just wanted to give you an update. I was compiling a new version of nvMiner with djm34's X17 compiled in.
He changed his github at about 3 hours into the compile. I killed the compile and I pulled down his latest and started compiling again. Not sure what went wrong but my VS project file got messed up. After 6 hours compiling with CUDA 5.5 I killed it.
I reverted back to my earlier version and I'm starting over to keep things clean on my side. If this was an algo that was profitable I'd could have done a quick compile with just that algo to get it out the door for you guys to use, but since there really is no reason to mine this coin (maybe a clone in the future) I see no reason to do it "wrong". So I'm going to take my time with it and get it right.
Right now PPL/X17 isn't worth mining so there is no reason to push a release other than to have a nvidia miner that supports one more algo. I'm not into "bragging rights on number of algos supported" if it doesn't make sense.
I'm also going to do some bench marking of stuff sp_ has published recently in the last 5 to 10 pages. Plus if TSIV doesn't release source code to his recent mods to CryptoNight I'm going to also benchmark Wolf's changes one by one and include what I find to benefit us.
So long story short, I'm going to delay the next release until I'm ready and have done some testing. The next nvMiner will have:
1) x17
2) any speed up proposed by sp_ or Wolf if they pan out for either Kepler or Maxwell.
3) If TSIV does a source release I'll include this also.
(should be 24 hours or less)
Also, since CUDA 6.5 is right around the corner from release using 5.5 will basically be 2 versions behind. There comes a point when it's not worth supporting older software and I think we are getting there. The next nvMiner WILL SUPPORT 5.5 but I don't know about future releases.
CUDA 6.0 (3.0/3.5/5.0) compiles a lot faster then 5.5 does with both 3.0/3.5. So in the future we will move to 6.0 for nvMiner when all algos have been tested on both Maxwell and Kepler and work ok. Right now (or last test) I had a problem with FRESH on 6.0.
I delay release of all nvMiner releases until I test EVERY algo after each build. Damn you djm34 because you are starting to make my testing time take longer.
So moral of this post is to start upgrading your Rigs to use the latest nvidia drivers. For the last 6 months (at least) I've been running the latest beta drivers at all times with no problems at all on both Maxwell and Kepler GPUs. So I see no reason not to run the latest or beta releases (what I run).
I'll compile this next version as 5.5 and probably release the version after this as 6.0 first then 5.5 and the 3rd version from now might very well be 6.0 or greater only.
SO I JUST WANTED TO GIVE A heads UP on my plans up move to CUDA 6.0 which is a normal release and not beta. If during testing I find this performs worse I'll let you guys know and will re-think this (we want highest hash rates of course).
So start thinking or doing upgrades to the latest nvidia driver releases.
Carlo