IMPORTANT! ETC is already at DAG epoch 350, so you must use PhoenixMiner 5.0b or later if you have 4 GB AMD cards. Additionally, here are some important
tips for longest possible usage of 4 GB AMD cards with PhoenixMiner 5.0b:
- If your rig is using Intel CPU, use the integrated graphics as primary display adapter. To do this, go to motherboard's BIOS setup and change the "Primary display adapter" to iGPU (or integrated GPU). Also, if you are using actual monitor or HDMI plug, put it in the motherboard video output.
- If you can't use integrated GPU, replace the primary GPU with one with 6 or 8 GB VRAM.
- Do not upgrade to a new AMD driver unless it is explicitly supported by PhoenixMiner. With 4 GB AMD cards, this will not only lower your hashrate but it will make impossible to mine when the DAG epoch is above 350.
- After the DAG epoch becomes more than 350, the optimal -gt value for the 4 GB AMD cards may change. So, we recommend to run auto-tune again after DAG epoch 350 to find the best GT values for the cards.
After extensive testing of AMD Windows drivers for the last two years or so, we identified two broad groups of drivers:
- Good drivers. These are versions from 18.12.1.1 to 19.7.5 (inclusive), and from 19.12.2 to 20.4.2 (inclusive). These will allow you to mine until DAG epoch 372-373 and won't need restart of PhoenixMiner on each DAG epoch change.
- Not so good drivers. These are versions 18.1.1 to 18.10.1 (inclusive), and from 19.8.1 to 19.12.1 (inclusive). This will allow you to mine until DAG epoch 365-366 and will require restart of PhoenixMiner on each DAG epoch change (for these drivers this will be preformed automatically unless you have added -dagrestart 0 command-line option to explicitly disable the auto-restart).
- Drivers older than 18.1.1 were not tested for 4 GB DAG operation.
Under Linux all relatively recent drivers (i.e. last 24-36 months) allow mining until epoch 378-380 but there are much more driver bugs, so if you are happy with your current driver version, do not change it.