This guide describes the concepts of profit switching for GPU and CPU mining, using a Managed Profit Miner in Awesome Miner. For a general introduction to the profit switching feature, see the guide Profit switching introduction.

Managed Profit Switching operates in the following way

  • Based on the concept of Managed Miner, but requires a specific kind called Managed Profit Miner
  • Intended to be used for GPU mining running on Windows
  • Supports automatic switching between multiple algorithms and mining software (e.g. switching between Gminer, NbMiner and more)
  • Automatically switch between multiple algorithms, online services like NiceHash and single coin pools

Content overview

Setup a single miner

This guide will describe the steps how to setup a single miner for Managed Profit Switching.

  1. Click New miner... in the main window of Awesome Miner
  2. The wizard welcome page is displayed. Click Next to continue.
  3. Select Managed Profit Miner and click Next
  4. Configure the new miner:
    1. Description: Give the new miner a description (optional)
    2. Managed host: Specify on which host the miner should be running. Select Local to run on the local computer where Awesome Miner is running. To run the mining on a computer where Remote Agent is running, either select it from the list if it already been added, or click the New button to add it. When adding a new Remote Agent, the IP address of the computer where the Remote Agent is running needs to be specified.
    3. Profit profile: Select either AMD GPU or nVidia GPU in the list of profit profiles. These profiles can be customized in the Options dialog later.
    4. Click Next to continue
  5. The first time a Managed Profit Miner is added, you need to specify which mining pools to use. The example below illustrates the use of NiceHash and Zpool, two mining pools where you only need to specify your Bitcoin address to get started with mining.Note: In case you don't see the page below and want to change the configuration, please finalize the wizard first and then go to the Options dialog, Profit switching section.
    Click Next to continue
  6. Click Finish to confirm the new miner

Managed Profit Switching: Setup multiple miners using network scan

This guide will describe the steps how to setup a multiple miners for for Managed Profit Switching. All computers to be managed by Awesome Miner must have Awesome Miner Remote Agent installed and running. The network scan will search for Remote Agents on the network.

  1. Click New miner... in the main window of Awesome Miner
  2. The wizard welcome page is displayed. Click Next to continue.
  3. Select Network scan and click Next
  4. Select the Miner type Awesome Miner Remote Agent and the IP range to scan. Click Start scan and wait until the scan is finished:
    1. Check the box on the left side for each miner you want to add
    2. Give the new miners a description (optional)
    3. Click Next to continue
  5. Select either AMD GPU or nVidia GPU in the list of profit profiles. These profiles can be customized in the Options dialog later.
    Click Next to continue
  6. The first time a Managed Profit Miner is added, you need to specify which mining pools to use. The example below illustrates the use of NiceHash and Zpool, two mining pools where you only need to specify your Bitcoin address to get started with mining.
    The same configuration for profit switching pools are also available via the Options dialog, Profit switching section.
    Click Next to continue
  7. Click Finish to confirm the new miners

Configuration

The profit switching feature can be configured in the Options dialog, Profit switching section as illustrated below. The settings below are only used for Managed Profit Miners, where GPU or CPU mining is used. The settings are not applicable for External Profit Switching where ASIC miners are used.

Settings for Managed Profit Switching

  • Enable Managed Profit Switching: Specifies if Managed Profit Switching should be used. When enabled, at least one of the checkboxes for the pools below must be checked. This option is required for using Managed Profit Miners (defined in Managed Miners section of Options dialog).
  • Nicehash, Zpool, and most other pools: Enter your Bitcoin address to use any of these mining pools.
  • Mining Pool Hub and Mining Dutch: It's required to first sign up on the pool web sites to use these mining pools. Enter your username and worker name as indicated on the pool web site. Please note that the worker name may have to be added on the pool web site before using it.
  • Ignore pools with no accepted shares in: If enabled, the profit switcher will mark the current pool as failed if the pool doesn't report any accepted shares in the configured number of minutes. This can be an indication that either the mining software or the pool isn't working as expected. The Ignore time specifies for how long the pool should be marked as failed.
  • Ignore pools after too many failed miner restart attempts: In case a specific mining software or algorithm are causing multiple crashes in a row, this feature can be used to mark the pool as failed, forcing the profit switcher to pick another pool that eventually will result in that another algorithm is selected.
  • Select BTC payout (c=BTC) for Yiimp based pools: This setting can enable payout in Bitcoin (BTC) for Yiimp-based pools (Zpool, Hash Refinery and so on). To enable payout in another coin via the password field, please go to the Online Services section and open the properties for each entry and set a custom value in the password field. Please see the documentation for the mining pools for details about supported parameters in the password field.
  • Make predefined pools available everywhere: If enabled, all the pools that are considered by the profit switcher will also be made available to be selected outside the profit switcher, for example as a pool for a Managed Miner.
  • Minimum time to stay on a pool: If enabled, Awesome Miner will not make and pool changes on a miner for the specific amount of time.

Custom pools

The profit switcher can include any pool as long as the profit information is available for the pool - for example that the coin statistics are known. To add multiple pools, a Pool Group containing all the pools must be added first. Pool Groups are defined in Options dialog, Pools section, Pool Groups tab. The Custom pools field can either specify a single pool, or a Pool Group that contains multiple pools.

Profit Profiles

Profit switching profiles defines the settings for the profit switchers. It defines what mining software to be used and the hashrate for each algorithm. The profiles can be configured in the Options dialog, Profit profile section.

There are three predefined profiles. AMD GPU, nVidia GPU and Intel CPU. These contain typical hashrates and a selection of which mining software they support. For the profit switcher to work well it's recommended to adjust the configuration to match the mining hardware being used. The predefined profiles can be modified and new profiles can be added.

To automatically adjust the hashrates for multiple algorithms at the same time, the feature Benchmark of algorithm hashrates can be used.

To change hashrate and power usage for all profiles, go to the Algorithms section of the Options dialog instead. The hashrates defined in the profit switching profiles will use the values from Algorithms as defaults, and only override those values where adjustments are needed.

Profile groups

Profile groups is a collection of multiple profit switching profiles. One profit switching profile could for example describe the hashrates for nVidia RTX 4080, while another describe the hashrates for nVidia RTX 4090. If a mining system is made up of three nVidia RTX 4080 and one nVidia RTX 4090, the profile group could specify this and the profit switcher would understand the exact hashrate capabilities of that system in order to make the correct decision.

Profile groups can also be used to make combined calculations in the Coins and Online Services tabs of the main window.

Every Managed Profit Miner must specify either a Profit switching profile or a Profit group. The power cost for a miner is based on the profile. If multiple GPU's are used, a Profile Group should be used to specify the number of each GPU type in order for the total power cost to be correct.

Profit Switching Profile Properties

The properties for a Profit switching profiles allows configuration of which mining software to use and customizable hashrates.

The Configure button can be used to specify custom command line parameters to the mining software.

The default hashrates and power usage are defined in the Options dialog, Algorithms section. Each profile can override these settings.