Litecoin GPU mining on a Mac? | Bitcointalksearch.org

joae1975

hero member

Activity: 752

Merit: 500

Quote from: maxpower on May 23, 2013, 09:23:33 AM

Make sure you're passing the "--scrypt" command line option to cgminer if you're mining Litecoins. Otherwise it will try to submit SHA256 shares, which are used for Bitcoin but not Litecoin, and they'll all be rejected.

Oh crap, thanks! Slowly getting this. Now I'm at 3Kh, I was better off CPU mining. I'm going to play with the parameters. Ttyl

Edit: got my info from
blog.nwoolls.com/2013/05/02/litecoin-mining-on-mac-os-x-gpu-mining/

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 09:20:53 AM

Quote from: maxpower on May 23, 2013, 08:50:18 AM

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:41:15 AM

Quote from: maxpower on May 23, 2013, 08:33:21 AM

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:25:30 AM

I was CPU mining on my iMac, getting about 20 Kh/s.

Then I decided to try GPU mining. My terminal window says it's getting 60+ Mh/s, but when I log into my pool website, it says I'm only getting ~14 Kh/s.

I'm also mining on my iphone 5 (for fun) using MobileMiner. It says I'm getting 0.79 Kh/s and the pool says 3 Kh/s.

What's the deal?

There doesn't seem to be a direct correlation between hash speed on your system and what the pool reports. For me, it tends to fluctuate depending on how many accepted shares I've sent over the last couple of minutes. I wouldn't worry about the difference.

Thanks, all my shares are being rejected too. I just started an hr ago.

What are you mining, and what's your cgminer configuration?

LTC, I have the intensity at 9, not sure how to tell you what the config is. Noob here. My imac is locked down, I'm on my mpb here. up to 59 Kh/s now on pool.

Make sure you're passing the "--scrypt" command line option to cgminer if you're mining Litecoins. Otherwise it will try to submit SHA256 shares, which are used for Bitcoin but not Litecoin, and they'll all be rejected.

joae1975

hero member

Activity: 752

Merit: 500

Quote from: maxpower on May 23, 2013, 08:50:18 AM

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:41:15 AM

Quote from: maxpower on May 23, 2013, 08:33:21 AM

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:25:30 AM

I was CPU mining on my iMac, getting about 20 Kh/s.

Then I decided to try GPU mining. My terminal window says it's getting 60+ Mh/s, but when I log into my pool website, it says I'm only getting ~14 Kh/s.

I'm also mining on my iphone 5 (for fun) using MobileMiner. It says I'm getting 0.79 Kh/s and the pool says 3 Kh/s.

What's the deal?

There doesn't seem to be a direct correlation between hash speed on your system and what the pool reports. For me, it tends to fluctuate depending on how many accepted shares I've sent over the last couple of minutes. I wouldn't worry about the difference.

Thanks, all my shares are being rejected too. I just started an hr ago.

What are you mining, and what's your cgminer configuration?

LTC, I have the intensity at 9, not sure how to tell you what the config is. Noob here. My imac is locked down, I'm on my mpb here. up to 59 Kh/s now on pool.

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: smokeyrd on May 23, 2013, 08:55:00 AM

I had similar experience with the mac line...really slow and not worth it

It definitely works better under Boot Camp/Windows 7 for me.

smokeyrd

newbie

Activity: 8

Merit: 0

I had similar experience with the mac line...really slow and not worth it

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:41:15 AM

Quote from: maxpower on May 23, 2013, 08:33:21 AM

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:25:30 AM

I was CPU mining on my iMac, getting about 20 Kh/s.

Then I decided to try GPU mining. My terminal window says it's getting 60+ Mh/s, but when I log into my pool website, it says I'm only getting ~14 Kh/s.

I'm also mining on my iphone 5 (for fun) using MobileMiner. It says I'm getting 0.79 Kh/s and the pool says 3 Kh/s.

What's the deal?

There doesn't seem to be a direct correlation between hash speed on your system and what the pool reports. For me, it tends to fluctuate depending on how many accepted shares I've sent over the last couple of minutes. I wouldn't worry about the difference.

Thanks, all my shares are being rejected too. I just started an hr ago.

What are you mining, and what's your cgminer configuration?

joae1975

hero member

Activity: 752

Merit: 500

Quote from: maxpower on May 23, 2013, 08:33:21 AM

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:25:30 AM

I was CPU mining on my iMac, getting about 20 Kh/s.

Then I decided to try GPU mining. My terminal window says it's getting 60+ Mh/s, but when I log into my pool website, it says I'm only getting ~14 Kh/s.

I'm also mining on my iphone 5 (for fun) using MobileMiner. It says I'm getting 0.79 Kh/s and the pool says 3 Kh/s.

What's the deal?

There doesn't seem to be a direct correlation between hash speed on your system and what the pool reports. For me, it tends to fluctuate depending on how many accepted shares I've sent over the last couple of minutes. I wouldn't worry about the difference.

Thanks, all my shares are being rejected too. I just started an hr ago.

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: joae1975 on May 23, 2013, 08:25:30 AM

I was CPU mining on my iMac, getting about 20 Kh/s.

Then I decided to try GPU mining. My terminal window says it's getting 60+ Mh/s, but when I log into my pool website, it says I'm only getting ~14 Kh/s.

I'm also mining on my iphone 5 (for fun) using MobileMiner. It says I'm getting 0.79 Kh/s and the pool says 3 Kh/s.

What's the deal?

There doesn't seem to be a direct correlation between hash speed on your system and what the pool reports. For me, it tends to fluctuate depending on how many accepted shares I've sent over the last couple of minutes. I wouldn't worry about the difference.

joae1975

hero member

Activity: 752

Merit: 500

I was CPU mining on my iMac, getting about 20 Kh/s.

Then I decided to try GPU mining. My terminal window says it's getting 60+ Mh/s, but when I log into my pool website, it says I'm only getting ~14 Kh/s.

I'm also mining on my iphone 5 (for fun) using MobileMiner. It says I'm getting 0.79 Kh/s and the pool says 3 Kh/s.

What's the deal?

the1silverwolf

member

Activity: 112

Merit: 10

Quote from: maxpower on May 04, 2013, 08:29:48 AM

Hey, thanks for digging that up. The OpenCL implementation could certainly be the culprit. I guess that's another point in favor of an OS change.

Glad I could help.

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: the1silverwolf on May 03, 2013, 08:36:47 PM

Quote from: clicksmoney on May 03, 2013, 08:24:18 PM

Quote from: maxpower on May 03, 2013, 07:42:17 PM

Quote from: TheSixthDependency on May 03, 2013, 06:35:23 PM

I managed to get cgminer working on my iMac with a 5670 but the hash rate for LTC is over 100 times slower than BTC.

I think that's normal, right? If you look at the LTC mining hardware comparison, most cards have hash rates in KHs, but if you look at the BTC mining hardware comparison, the same cards have rates measured in MHs. I think that's just due to differences in the two algorithms.

I have a 15-20 performance hit from LTC/FTC under OSX on the exact same hardware even losing system memory to a 32 bit Windows Version. It's not just SHA vs Scrypt hashing.

I believe I mentioned something about a performance hit using opencl on mac vs windows or linux. I found the thread:

Quote

Q: Can I mine with cgminer on a MAC?
A: cgminer will compile on OSX, but the performance of GPU mining is
compromised due to the opencl implementation on OSX, there is no temperature
or fanspeed monitoring, and the cooling design of most MACs, despite having
powerful GPUs, will usually not cope with constant usage leading to a high
risk of thermal damage. It is highly recommended not to mine on a MAC unless
it is to a USB device.

From Here : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/official-cgminer-mining-software-thread-for-linuxwinosxmipsarmr-pi-4110-28402

Hey, thanks for digging that up. The OpenCL implementation could certainly be the culprit. I guess that's another point in favor of an OS change.

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: clicksmoney on May 03, 2013, 08:21:54 PM

Seriously GUIminer (Scrypt alpha version) is the way to do it under XP/Vista/7 booted to directly with the option button on boot is the way to go. I can't explain why we're not getting good results under Lion or Mountain Lion but if your mining time is precious and you have 2 AMD card in you machine take the side cover off and use a large extraction fan above PCIE slots.

If you still need to be in OSX to do things I'd recommend building a cheap Linux/Win box. The heat stress on your Mac hardware isn't worth it - dead logic board equals major PIA.

Yeah, I think I'm ready to admit at this point that mining under OSX just isn't there yet. The Mac Pro isn't a bad machine for a starter Windows mining rig, though. :-) I'm going to try that out.

the1silverwolf

member

Activity: 112

Merit: 10

Quote from: clicksmoney on May 03, 2013, 08:24:18 PM

Quote from: maxpower on May 03, 2013, 07:42:17 PM

Quote from: TheSixthDependency on May 03, 2013, 06:35:23 PM

I managed to get cgminer working on my iMac with a 5670 but the hash rate for LTC is over 100 times slower than BTC.

I think that's normal, right? If you look at the LTC mining hardware comparison, most cards have hash rates in KHs, but if you look at the BTC mining hardware comparison, the same cards have rates measured in MHs. I think that's just due to differences in the two algorithms.

I have a 15-20 performance hit from LTC/FTC under OSX on the exact same hardware even losing system memory to a 32 bit Windows Version. It's not just SHA vs Scrypt hashing.

I believe I mentioned something about a performance hit using opencl on mac vs windows or linux. I found the thread:

Quote

Q: Can I mine with cgminer on a MAC?
A: cgminer will compile on OSX, but the performance of GPU mining is
compromised due to the opencl implementation on OSX, there is no temperature
or fanspeed monitoring, and the cooling design of most MACs, despite having
powerful GPUs, will usually not cope with constant usage leading to a high
risk of thermal damage. It is highly recommended not to mine on a MAC unless
it is to a USB device.

From Here : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/official-cgminer-mining-software-thread-for-linuxwinosxmipsarmr-pi-4110-28402

clicksmoney

member

Activity: 103

Merit: 10

Quote from: maxpower on May 03, 2013, 07:42:17 PM

Quote from: TheSixthDependency on May 03, 2013, 06:35:23 PM

I managed to get cgminer working on my iMac with a 5670 but the hash rate for LTC is over 100 times slower than BTC.

I think that's normal, right? If you look at the LTC mining hardware comparison, most cards have hash rates in KHs, but if you look at the BTC mining hardware comparison, the same cards have rates measured in MHs. I think that's just due to differences in the two algorithms.

I have a 15-20 performance hit from LTC/FTC under OSX on the exact same hardware even losing system memory to a 32 bit Windows Version. It's not just SHA vs Scrypt hashing.

clicksmoney

member

Activity: 103

Merit: 10

Seriously GUIminer (Scrypt alpha version) is the way to do it under XP/Vista/7 booted to directly with the option button on boot is the way to go. I can't explain why we're not getting good results under Lion or Mountain Lion but if your mining time is precious and you have 2 AMD card in you machine take the side cover off and use a large extraction fan above PCIE slots.

If you still need to be in OSX to do things I'd recommend building a cheap Linux/Win box. The heat stress on your Mac hardware isn't worth it - dead logic board equals major PIA.

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: TheSixthDependency on May 03, 2013, 06:35:23 PM

I managed to get cgminer working on my iMac with a 5670 but the hash rate for LTC is over 100 times slower than BTC.

I think that's normal, right? If you look at the LTC mining hardware comparison, most cards have hash rates in KHs, but if you look at the BTC mining hardware comparison, the same cards have rates measured in MHs. I think that's just due to differences in the two algorithms.

TheSixthDependency

newbie

Activity: 5

Merit: 0

I managed to get cgminer working on my iMac with a 5670 but the hash rate for LTC is over 100 times slower than BTC.

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

I spent a little time on cudaminer on Mac OS X. I was able to get it to compile (and took notes!), and it's able to autotune my GTX285 (showing me a nice KHs in the process), but when it starts to mine, I get a segmentation fault.

After all that, I noticed that someone else filed an issue on Github for the same problem: https://github.com/cbuchner1/CudaMiner/issues/2 -- maybe that'll lead to a solution.

I'm also going to give reaper a try.

maxpower

sr. member

Activity: 456

Merit: 250

Quote from: the1silverwolf on May 03, 2013, 04:05:30 PM

Quote from: maxpower on May 03, 2013, 01:57:38 PM

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions! The machine is a big tower Mac Pro (with 2 PCI-E slots!), and I do have an NVIDIA GTX285 in it. Maybe the fact that the GPU is NVIDIA is what's preventing me from mining LTC with cgminer, even though mining BTC works fine. I'm going to see what I can do with CUDA Miner, but based on this thread, I'm also going to look into getting an ATI card and/or setting up a Windows partition.

My only worry about mining in Windows on a Mac Pro is that I've heard that Windows can't manage the Mac's fans. Can anyone confirm or deny that? Right now, under OSX, I have the fans cranked way up with smcFanControl, and that's keeping the temperature manageable.

There are tools that you can use to control the fans on windows as well. The following thread for example.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/58373-input-remapper-1004-release/

(It does other things, but they added fan control specifically for the mac pro, so you might want to give it a try.)

Great find, thanks!

the1silverwolf

member

Activity: 112

Merit: 10

Quote from: maxpower on May 03, 2013, 01:57:38 PM

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions! The machine is a big tower Mac Pro (with 2 PCI-E slots!), and I do have an NVIDIA GTX285 in it. Maybe the fact that the GPU is NVIDIA is what's preventing me from mining LTC with cgminer, even though mining BTC works fine. I'm going to see what I can do with CUDA Miner, but based on this thread, I'm also going to look into getting an ATI card and/or setting up a Windows partition.

My only worry about mining in Windows on a Mac Pro is that I've heard that Windows can't manage the Mac's fans. Can anyone confirm or deny that? Right now, under OSX, I have the fans cranked way up with smcFanControl, and that's keeping the temperature manageable.

There are tools that you can use to control the fans on windows as well. The following thread for example.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/58373-input-remapper-1004-release/

(It does other things, but they added fan control specifically for the mac pro, so you might want to give it a try.)

Topic: Litecoin GPU mining on a Mac? (Read 12512 times)