NBMiner Partially Cracks Nvidia Anti-Mining Limiter, Restores 70% Performance on Ampere LHR GPUs:
Nvidia probably thought it had put a definite stop to Ethereum mining on GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere) graphics cards with the introduction of the Lite Hash Rate (LHR) series. NBMiner, a popular mining software, has found a partial workaround to Nvidia's enhanced anti-mining limiter.
The latest version of NBMiner (via VideoCardz) debuted today and brought a very interesting hack with it. According to the changelog, the tool restores up to 70% of the mining performance on Ampere LHR graphics cards. It's just a partial bypass, but NBMiner is on to something so we can't discard the possibility of a full workaround down the line. Sadly, miners will probably have the LHR series on their radars with this new development. This comes as bad news for gamers as another shortage may be on the horizon.
NBMiner's solution is currently a work in progress. The developer recommends that miners use 68% of the graphics card's mining performance since that's the most stable value according to tests. The software works on both Linux and Windows operating systems and with Nvidia's latest GeForce drivers without a hiccup. However, the hack only supports the ethash algorithm at the moment - other mining algorithms may be supported in the near future.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @12:42AM (1 child)
Mining firms already have it up to 100% but they don't share the code.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:26AM
Mining firms should be using specially developed hardware.
How much does it take? Somewhere in the six figures?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @02:15AM (13 children)
Why sadly? People are getting the performance the device they paid for is capable of.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday August 18 2021, @02:34AM (4 children)
Nonsense. The performance they paid for is the performance that Nvidia allows the design of the card operate under, the *advertised* performance. That the card can be hacked to perform better does not mean that’s what customers paid for.
(Score: 2, Touché) by weilawei on Wednesday August 18 2021, @04:22AM (2 children)
Nonsense. First sale doctrine says they bought a piece of hardware. It's capable of whatever it's physically capable of, and the owner, the customer, can do whatever they want with it, including using it as a wall hanging or hacking it to perform faster.
Get the boot out of your mouth, next time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @05:30AM (1 child)
licensing of IP makes a mockery of your purchased==free use argument. else first sale doctrine would legally apply to software and other recordings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:04AM
First sale definitely does apply. How do you think GameStop operates?
The doctrine originally arose out of book publishers attempting to "license" their wares.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @05:57AM
Reading comprehension much?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @02:50AM (7 children)
The stated goal of the LHR cards is to create more stock for people that are going to use them for purposes other than mining. If the cards are useful for mining, then not only does that mean that shortages are going to start cropping up again but that Nvidia will either exacerbate the shortage further by discontinuing the line completely or get even more draconian/invasive in their anti-mining efforts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:20AM (6 children)
Their goal should be to push as much silicon in exchange for dollars out the door that they can.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:55AM (4 children)
What makes you think they're not doing exactly that? It would be kinda silly to create an artificial shortage, especially if they not up the price at the same time.
nvidia has a very large interest in keeping the market saturated, which they obviously cannot do, so they have to lower the demand. Because they are already looking at the problem this creates for them: There's room for additional competition now. Intel already announced that they will enter the GPU market, something that would be unthinkable if there was enough supply for "normal" GPU use. The only reason there is a market for Intel is simply that existing GPU suppliers cannot keep up with demand.
This is basically why nvidia tries to make its cards unattractive to miners. Why else do you think any company would artificially lower the attractiveness of their product?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 18 2021, @11:24AM (3 children)
Artificial shortage like building deliberately nerfed product? I think that's exactly how they're trying to profit from this. Rather the question should be how to get new players to enter the market.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 18 2021, @02:00PM (2 children)
nvidia seems worried that they may lose the gamer market, which they probably should, considering that coin mining may well be a fad that may or may not continue in 2-3 years, while there will always be a market for more powerful GPUs for gaming.
Right now they're the household name for high end, reliable gaming cards, and game developers are optimizing their games for their GPUs, which means that AMD (and of course everyone else who wants to muscle into the market) have to play the catch up game. If their cards are no longer what most gamers have, because they simply cannot get their hands on any, game makers will stop optimizing their games for those cards, and then they may be forced to play the catch up game when some other GPU maker becomes the leading brand.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 18 2021, @11:56PM (1 child)
This isn't a serious threat to Nvidia's future. Any competitor will have the same problems and the same opportunities. Instead, I think it's an obvious money grab, restrict the supply of computing power for cryptocurrency miners to increase the profit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 19 2021, @05:51AM
The whole reason LHR cards work is because games and cryptocurrency do different things on the cards. The reason why games commonly display what card company they work on is that Nvidia, AMD, Intel, etc. don't have identical hardware but each has their proprietary quirks and performance errata.
The indicators are that nerfing the cards works quite well. The markup on LHR cards on the secondary market is only around 20% while the same non-LHR cards are between 110-200%. And the entire reason why is that reduction of 30% of your cryptopower means that without the price reductions a crypto miner gets more bang for their buck by buying cards with less power but can run at 100%. So now there is both price reductions and supply increases for their top end cards and actual gaming customers are finally starting to get them in significant number.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @07:16AM
Exactly and not having LHR cards will do the opposite in both the short and long term by their calculations. If no one can get their hands on your cards, eventually their brand loyalty will wear out and they will buy someone else's. Now and in the future. They lose all their marketing and other secondary costs. They are also cutting themselves out with the large secondary market on cards and questionable reliability thereof. As another poster pointed out, they are also potentially losing share because large players are considering entering the GPU and GPGPU market. There are probably other factors they've considered that you haven't even thought of yet. And your post just screams of "why don't the experts think of this easy solution I came up with in 10 seconds that they already rejected?"
(Score: 2, Touché) by DannyB on Wednesday August 18 2021, @08:27PM (1 child)
Now minors will need to purchase 13/7 times as many GPU cards to have same level of performance since each card only has 70% of original performance.
This will further increase demand. Making the product more difficulter to find for consumers. Increasing Nvidia's prophets who could not have seen this coming.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 19 2021, @07:48AM
Not really because now they are competing with their binned and last generation products, meaning miners are in a completely different market from the gamers anyway. Regardless, if you think that miners weren't going to build machines to use all the cards they can get their hands on anyway, I've got a bridge to sell you.