Mine in multiple pools to reduce variance

giletto

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Merit: 250

Quote from: crazyates on November 17, 2013, 09:34:04 AM

Quote from: organofcorti on November 17, 2013, 07:34:09 AM

Load balancing is available in CGMiner. I'm not sure about how easy it is

It's very easy. It's as simple as adjusting your config file to add multiple pools, and then it automatically balances them. Or just listing multiple pools in your command line, if you do it that way.

Here's an example config thread. I've been doing it this way for many many months now.

Quote

"pools" : [
   {
      "name" : "pool1",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool1.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool1user",
      "pass" : "pool1pass",
      "pool-priority" : "0"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool2",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool2.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool2user",
      "pass" : "pool2pass",
      "pool-priority" : "1"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool3",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool3.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool3user",
      "pass" : "pool3pass",
      "pool-priority" : "2"
   }
],

EDIT: Dur, of course you have to add ""balance" : true," into your config file as well. Otherwise the additional pools just act as backups.

How about this thread in case of balance pools (like you post with 3 pools 33% balance share) and backup? For example, correct me if i am wrong: In your thread all 3 pools shall work in balance with 33.33% each. What will happen, if 1 pool is not reachable? Will the other 2 pools automatic share 50% / 50%, because Pool 1 0% - Pool 2 50% - Pool 3 50%?

If so, that would be great!

But right now the thread look like, the pools are setup like backup pools?

Code:

"pool-priority" : "0", "pool-priority" : "1", "pool-priority" : "2"

Is that correct?

dmbf

newbie

Activity: 39

Merit: 0

Hi

I've been experimenting with --balance and --load-balance and posted my observations and some questions in my newbie thread here https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3836730

I don't want to crosspost my questions again here but if anyone reading this thread is able to answer some of them, I'd appreciate it.

crazyates

legendary

Activity: 952

Merit: 1000

Quote from: organofcorti on November 17, 2013, 07:34:09 AM

Load balancing is available in CGMiner. I'm not sure about how easy it is

It's very easy. It's as simple as adjusting your config file to add multiple pools, and then it automatically balances them. Or just listing multiple pools in your command line, if you do it that way.

Here's an example config thread. I've been doing it this way for many many months now.

Quote

"pools" : [
   {
      "name" : "pool1",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool1.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool1user",
      "pass" : "pool1pass",
      "pool-priority" : "0"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool2",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool2.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool2user",
      "pass" : "pool2pass",
      "pool-priority" : "1"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool3",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool3.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool3user",
      "pass" : "pool3pass",
      "pool-priority" : "2"
   }
],

EDIT: Dur, of course you have to add ""balance" : true," into your config file as well. Otherwise the additional pools just act as backups.

organofcorti

donator

Activity: 2058

Merit: 1007

Poor impulse control.

Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on November 17, 2013, 06:41:59 AM

Quote from: organofcorti on November 17, 2013, 05:27:27 AM

As miners miners decide they can't take the variance the variance on the smaller pools

Duplicate duplicate?

Well, well. Could be, could be. Wink

Quote from: organofcorti on November 17, 2013, 05:27:27 AM

So now is a good time to remind miners that "load balancing" - mining on multiple pools, even small ones - will significantly reduce your variance.

Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on November 17, 2013, 06:41:59 AM

Are there software tools to facilitate this? To use the smaller pools effectively they need a smaller proportion of the miner's hashrate.

Load balancing is available in CGMiner. I'm not sure about how easy it is, and I don't know if BFGMiner also has this option.

Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on November 17, 2013, 06:41:59 AM

Anyway eventually a switch to Multi-PPS will be needed.

I hasn't thought of it in these terms before, but Multi-PPS would allow miners to use smaller pools since they'd be using a variance free reward method, and so help reduce the centralisation of hashing.

-ck

legendary

Activity: 4088

Merit: 1631

Ruu \o/

cgminer supports an arbitrary quota based load balancing system now.

Meni Rosenfeld

donator

Activity: 2058

Merit: 1054

Quote from: organofcorti on November 17, 2013, 05:27:27 AM

As miners miners decide they can't take the variance the variance on the smaller pools

Duplicate duplicate?

Quote from: organofcorti on November 17, 2013, 05:27:27 AM

So now is a good time to remind miners that "load balancing" - mining on multiple pools, even small ones - will significantly reduce your variance.

Are there software tools to facilitate this? To use the smaller pools effectively they need a smaller proportion of the miner's hashrate.

Anyway eventually a switch to Multi-PPS will be needed.

organofcorti

donator

Activity: 2058

Merit: 1007

Poor impulse control.

This is a really important post right now, so I'm bumping this.

GHash.IO's recent hashrate increases mean most small pools are taking a big variance hit. As miners miners decide they can't take the variance on the smaller pools, they will move to the larger pools increasing the larger pools proportion of the network even further.

So now is a good time to remind miners that "load balancing" - mining on multiple pools, even small ones - will significantly reduce your variance.

Edit: Maybe this should also be stickied?

enmaku

hero member

Activity: 742

Merit: 500

Aside from the p2pool issue, does anyone have results to report?

Red Emerald

hero member

Activity: 742

Merit: 500

Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on April 30, 2012, 09:25:05 AM

Quote from: Red Emerald on April 29, 2012, 11:42:42 PM

Edit: Nope Sad

Still > 30% rejects.

To clarify you are getting low reject rate using p2pool directly but higher reject rate when using the proxy?

Correct

Quote

If so the proxy may be adding too much latency. Is the reject rate higher on other pools when also using p2pool? If so the proxy may be getting "confused" by p2pool LP (~98% of p2pool LP involve no block change).

I'm pretty sure it has to do with LP since the reject rate is horrible for all the pools when p2pool is enabled. I don't know what to do to BitHopper to make it not confused. I was going to try a different mining proxy, but none of them seemed actively maintained.

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Quote from: Red Emerald on April 29, 2012, 11:42:42 PM

Edit: Nope Sad

Still > 30% rejects.

To clarify you are getting low reject rate using p2pool directly but higher reject rate when using the proxy?

If so the proxy may be adding too much latency. Is the reject rate higher on other pools when also using p2pool? If so the proxy may be getting "confused" by p2pool LP (~98% of p2pool LP involve no block change).

Red Emerald

hero member

Activity: 742

Merit: 500

Quote from: JayCoin on April 29, 2012, 10:28:02 PM

Quote from: Red Emerald on April 27, 2012, 01:03:55 PM

Quote from: jkminkov on April 27, 2012, 02:34:46 AM

edit user.cfg with an entry line for each pool

percent:XX

where XX = 100 / # of pools enabled

for p2pool you should use p2pmining as it is the only node offering difficulty 1 shares, if you don't use diff 1 shares BH will end in a mess as it hops between pools counting shares(diff 1 shares)

p2pmining.com would work, but it isn't needed. You can just add "/1" after your worker's username and that does the same with the current version of p2pool.

However, I did set difficulty 1 shares and I still got a horrible reject rate. I think its because of the massive amounts of longpolls.

Use +1 not /1 to the end of your username.

Oh nice. Thanks.

Edit: Nope Sad

Still > 30% rejects.

JayCoin

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Activity: 409

Merit: 251

Crypt'n Since 2011

Quote from: Red Emerald on April 27, 2012, 01:03:55 PM

Quote from: jkminkov on April 27, 2012, 02:34:46 AM

edit user.cfg with an entry line for each pool

percent:XX

where XX = 100 / # of pools enabled

for p2pool you should use p2pmining as it is the only node offering difficulty 1 shares, if you don't use diff 1 shares BH will end in a mess as it hops between pools counting shares(diff 1 shares)

p2pmining.com would work, but it isn't needed. You can just add "/1" after your worker's username and that does the same with the current version of p2pool.

However, I did set difficulty 1 shares and I still got a horrible reject rate. I think its because of the massive amounts of longpolls.

Use +1 not /1 to the end of your username.

Red Emerald

hero member

Activity: 742

Merit: 500

Quote from: jkminkov on April 27, 2012, 02:34:46 AM

edit user.cfg with an entry line for each pool

percent:XX

where XX = 100 / # of pools enabled

for p2pool you should use p2pmining as it is the only node offering difficulty 1 shares, if you don't use diff 1 shares BH will end in a mess as it hops between pools counting shares(diff 1 shares)

p2pmining.com would work, but it isn't needed. You can just add "/1" after your worker's username and that does the same with the current version of p2pool.

However, I did set difficulty 1 shares and I still got a horrible reject rate. I think its because of the massive amounts of longpolls.

jkminkov

hero member

Activity: 698

Merit: 500

edit user.cfg with an entry line for each pool

percent:XX

where XX = 100 / # of pools enabled

for p2pool you should use p2pmining as it is the only node offering difficulty 1 shares, if you don't use diff 1 shares BH will end in a mess as it hops between pools counting shares(diff 1 shares)

Red Emerald

hero member

Activity: 742

Merit: 500

So bithopper needs some tweaks to work well with p2pool. I was getting a lot of rejects. Anyone have any experience with this?

grue

legendary

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brilliant!

Red Emerald

hero member

Activity: 742

Merit: 500

So will any changes need to be made to bithopper's code? Or should the user.cfg be enough?

I like this idea, not only for reducing variance, but also for having a bunch of backup pools (and of course p2pool

)

It also looks like someone has done some math for us already. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/weekly-pool-and-network-statistics-77000

Meni Rosenfeld

donator

Activity: 2058

Merit: 1054

Quote from: check_status on April 26, 2012, 03:15:27 PM

If you have 2 rigs, 1 hashing 1500 MH/s and the other hashing at 2400 MH/s, you could point the 1 1500 rig at p2pool and the 2nd 2400 rig at EMC. Each rig has it's own instance of a miner, so just point each at a different pool. This is what I get out of the OP.

Is the proxy method being suggested for single rig miners?

These are two means to the same end. The proxy method is more general, more accurate and potentially simpler. Manually pointing each rig to a different pool is more of a workaround if that's unavailable.

Quote from: check_status on April 26, 2012, 03:15:27 PM

What would be the minimum hashing ability that would benefit from splitting between 2 pools? Like those with one 6850/5830/5850?

Assuming the pools use a reward method with moderate variance such as PPLNS with X=1, the miner needs to have a hashrate of at least on the order of H/D (where H is the pool hashrate and D is the difficulty) to see significant gains. So for example if the pool is 1 TH/s and D=1.5M then the miner needs to be more than about 1 MH/s, which is pretty much everyone.

check_status

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Web Dev, Db Admin, Computer Technician

If you have 2 rigs, 1 hashing 1500 MH/s and the other hashing at 2400 MH/s, you could point the 1 1500 rig at p2pool and the 2nd 2400 rig at EMC. Each rig has it's own instance of a miner, so just point each at a different pool. This is what I get out of the OP.

Is the proxy method being suggested for single rig miners?
What would be the minimum hashing ability that would benefit from splitting between 2 pools? Like those with one 6850/5830/5850?

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

One caveat is cgminer seems to have inefficiencies when using in round robin mode. Maybe that will be improved in future versions but a proxy server should work fine.

Topic: Mine in multiple pools to reduce variance (Read 19335 times)