Post
Topic
Board Mining
Re: A slightly more open approach to bitcoin on the GPU
by
nelisky
on 09/09/2010, 03:58:43 UTC
I think the big secret thing with cuda or opencl clients is that they give one person a decisive advantage over everyone else running only a cpu. Add that with the fact that most users don't know cuda programing (me included) makes for a situation where a cuda client can be valuable to the author... For example artforz has made his own cuda client that has not been released. It has been rumored that he makes up 25% of the generation power on the network. It give him a huge advantage and one I think artforz would like to keep.

The down side to opening up a GPU client to the masses is that it completely kills CPU based generation unless you have a lot of cpus.... On my windows client I went from 4500Khash to 29000khashes.

I don't think that the bias should be towards the ones with better printers having more money Smiley The Bitcoins are a whole ecosystem, and mining for them is a small part of it, I guess. If lots of people start running GPU based mining, then the advantage that was owned by artforz and a handful of others will blend into more hands and pockets, thus making the mining less efficient for everyone. But mining is part statistics, part luck. I recently generated 3 blocks, running a machine that has been mining non stop for over a month. These 3 blocks are the only blocks it ever generated.

Of course artforz would like to keep the advantage. Heck, I could use this to my advantage too, but I'd rather take the open source business approach and say "here, take it, my treat" but expect you to do the same for me and others (yes, trust is the base for this), and if you like it, I'll take whatever you feel fair. You want me to do something specific? need suport? Well, priority and special attention comes with a cost.

I may never get as many coins as artforz created, but I hope I did my share on helping to spread them Wink

I will give this a try here in a few days or so on my 8800gtx hackintosh and see how it runs. What GPU does your mac have in it?
I have no cuda or MAC OS X programming knowledge but, I have done some c in BSD and will have a go at the code to see what I might be able to do. Thank you for your efforts!

I've got a GT330M, really basic entry level thing. And you are most welcome.