Mine ETH at 31MH/s with your R9 290, you will make like $1.50/day or so.
First you need to decide what to mine. The web site whatomine.com is a good place to start. Input your estimated hash rates for your 290 and the it will tell you a good coin to mine. Then go out and get the appropriate Miner software for that coin/algo. Then find a pool that supports that coin, sign up or look at their help pages. Setup your .bat file and start mining.
My main question is how do I set up the actual miner? How do I know what my estimated hashrate is?
Download the Nicehash miner legacy version and run the benchmark. That will give you a good idea of your rigs hash rate for various algorithms and you can use that to calculate your profitability on whattomine.com
https://github.com/nicehash/NiceHashMinerLegacy/releasesThanks bois, gonna check that out.
I think it's fair to say you're late to the party, unfortunately.
The altcoin bubble was well inflated in July this year but now it feels like all what's left is air.
BTC is still flying, and so are ICOs. Altcoin mining still does make some money but don't expect miracles. Have a look at whattomine or
www.crypto-coinz.net for an idea of what your gear can produce.
He is late, but its a card that he already had so 1.00 a day for an old card you had sitting around isn't bad. Its better than all these newbies asking how to set up a brand new rig, chasing the dragon....
Yeah, it's really funny. I posted somewhere about my experiences from a few years ago and how I ended up with a few btc after mining alts, and newbs immediately rush to ask "how do I mine bitcoins? this sounds good", lmao.