XMR-Stak 2.3.0 RC

Co-authored-by: psychocrypt <psychocryptHPC@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: fireice-uk <fireice-uk@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Lee Clagett <code@leeclagett.com>
Co-authored-by: curie-kief <curie-kief@users.noreply.github.com>

4 files changed, 51 insertions, 10 deletions

diff --git a/doc/FAQ.md b/doc/FAQ.md
index ffbc36f..f22bb53 100644
--- a/doc/FAQ.md
+++ b/doc/FAQ.md
@@ -8,6 +8,9 @@
 * [Illegal instruction (core dumped)](#illegal-instruction)
 * [Virus Protection Alert](#virus-protection-alert)
 * [Change Currency to Mine](#change-currency-to-mine)
+* [How can I mine Monero](#how-can-i-mine-monero)
+* [Why is Monero named monero2](why-is-monero-named-monero2)
+* [Which currency must be chosen if my fork coin is not listed](#which-currency-must-be-chosen-if-my-fork-coin-is-not-listed)
 
 ## "Obtaining SeLockMemoryPrivilege failed."
 
@@ -70,3 +73,16 @@ If your antivirus software flags **xmr-stak**, it will likely move it to its qua
 If the miner is compiled for Monero and Aeon than you can change
  - the value `currency` in the config *or*
  - start the miner with the [command line option](usage.md) `--currency monero` or `--currency aeon`
+
+## How can I mine Monero
+
+Set the value `currency` in `pools.txt` to `monero2`.
+
+## Why is Monero named monero2
+
+To avoid configuration conflicts after the hard fork of Monero to the new POW with our old naming schema where all cryptonight currencies was selected by choosing `monero` as currency we decided to switch to the name `monero2`.
+
+## Which currency must be chosen if my fork coin is not listed
+
+If your coin you want to mine is not listed please check the documentation of the coin and try to find out if `cryptonight` or `cryptonight-lite` is the used algorithm.
+Select one of these generic coin algorithms.
diff --git a/doc/compile.md b/doc/compile.md
index 771c9d1..984c013 100644
--- a/doc/compile.md
+++ b/doc/compile.md
@@ -47,7 +47,6 @@ After the configuration you need to compile the miner, follow the guide for your
   - there is no *http* interface available if option is disabled: `cmake .. -DMICROHTTPD_ENABLE=OFF`
 - `OpenSSL_ENABLE` allow to disable/enable the dependency *OpenSSL*
   - it is not possible to connect to a *https* secured pool if option is disabled: `cmake .. -DOpenSSL_ENABLE=OFF`
-- `XMR-STAK_CURRENCY` - compile for Monero(XMR) or Aeon(AEON) usage only e.g. `cmake .. -DXMR-STAK_CURRENCY=monero`
 - `XMR-STAK_COMPILE` select the CPU compute architecture (default: native)
   - native means the miner binary can be used only on the system where it is compiled but will archive the highest hash rate
   - use `cmake .. -DXMR-STAK_COMPILE=generic` to run the miner on all CPU's with sse2
diff --git a/doc/tuning.md b/doc/tuning.md
index 5125387..47ad0bb 100644
--- a/doc/tuning.md
+++ b/doc/tuning.md
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 # Tuning Guide
 
 ## Content Overview
+* [Benchmark](#benchmark)
 * [Windows](#windows)
 * [NVIDIA Backend](#nvidia-backend)
   * [Choose Value for `threads` and `blocks`](#choose-value-for-threads-and-blocks)
@@ -8,11 +9,18 @@
 * [AMD Backend](#amd-backend)
   * [Choose `intensity` and `worksize`](#choose-intensity-and-worksize)
   * [Add more GPUs](#add-more-gpus)
+  * [disable comp_mode](#disable-comp_mode)
+  * [change the scratchpad memory pattern](change-the-scratchpad-memory-pattern)
   * [Increase Memory Pool](#increase-memory-pool)
   * [Scratchpad Indexing](#scratchpad-indexing)
 * [CPU Backend](#cpu-backend)
   * [Choose Value for `low_power_mode`](#choose-value-for-low_power_mode)
 
+## Benchmark
+To benchmark the miner speed there are two ways.
+  - Mine against a pool end press the key `h` after 30 sec to see the hash report.
+  - Start the miner with the cli option `--benchmark BLOCKVERSION`. The miner will not connect to any pool and performs a 60sec performance benchmark with all enabled back-ends.
+
 ## Windows
 "Run As Administrator" prompt (UAC) confirmation is needed to use large pages on Windows 7.
 On Windows 10 it is only needed once to set up the account to use them.
@@ -46,8 +54,12 @@ To add a new GPU you need to add a new config set to `gpu_threads_conf`.
 ```
 "gpu_threads_conf" :
 [
-    { "index" : 0, "threads" : 17, "blocks" : 60, "bfactor" : 0, "bsleep" :  0, "affine_to_cpu" : false},
-    { "index" : 1, "threads" : 17, "blocks" : 60, "bfactor" : 0, "bsleep" :  0, "affine_to_cpu" : false},
+    { "index" : 0, "threads" : 17, "blocks" : 60, "bfactor" : 0, "bsleep" :  0,
+      "affine_to_cpu" : false, "sync_mode" : 3,
+    },
+    { "index" : 1, "threads" : 17, "blocks" : 60, "bfactor" : 0, "bsleep" :  0,
+      "affine_to_cpu" : false, "sync_mode" : 3,
+    },
 ],
 ```
 
@@ -70,13 +82,26 @@ If you are unsure of either GPU or platform index value, you can use `clinfo` to
 ```
 "gpu_threads_conf" :
 [
-    { "index" : 0, "intensity" : 1000, "worksize" : 8, "affine_to_cpu" : false },
-    { "index" : 1, "intensity" : 1000, "worksize" : 8, "affine_to_cpu" : false },
+    { "index" : 0, "intensity" : 1000, "worksize" : 8, "affine_to_cpu" : false, 
+      "strided_index" : true, "mem_chunk" : 2, "comp_mode" : true
+    },
+    { "index" : 1, "intensity" : 1000, "worksize" : 8, "affine_to_cpu" : false, 
+      "strided_index" : true, "mem_chunk" : 2, "comp_mode" : true
+    },
 ],
 
 "platform_index" : 0,
 ```
 
+### disable comp_mode
+
+`comp_mode` means compatibility mode and removes some checks in compute kernel those takes care that the miner can be used on a wide range of AMD/OpenCL GPU devices.
+To avoid miner crashes the `intensity` should be a multiple of `worksize` if `comp_mode` is `false`.
+
+### change the scratchpad memory pattern
+
+By changing `strided_index` to `2` the number of contiguous elements (a 16 byte) for one miner thread can be fine tuned with the option `mem_chunk`.
+
 ### Increase Memory Pool
 
 By setting the following environment variables before the miner is started OpenCl allows the miner to more threads.
@@ -84,9 +109,9 @@ This variables must be set each time before the miner is started else it could b
 
 ```
 export GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR=1
-export GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE=99
-export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=99
-export GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT=99
+export GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE=100
+export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
+export GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
 ```
 
 *Note:* Windows user must use `set` instead of `export` to define an environment variable.
diff --git a/doc/usage.md b/doc/usage.md
index a810469..1f1fb09 100644
--- a/doc/usage.md
+++ b/doc/usage.md
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 * [Usage on Windows](#usage-on-windows)
 * [Usage on Linux](#usage-on-linux)
 * [Command Line Options](#command-line-options)
-* [HTML and JSON API report configuraton](#xx)
+* [HTML and JSON API report configuraton](#html-and-json-api-report-configuraton)
 
 ## Configurations
 
@@ -13,12 +13,13 @@ Before you started the miner the first time there are no config files available.
 Config files will be created at the first start.
 The number of files depends on the available backends.
 `config.txt` contains the common miner settings.
+`pools.txt` contains the selected mining pools and currency to mine.
 `amd.txt`, `cpu.txt` and `nvidia.txt` contains miner backend specific settings and can be used for further tuning ([Tuning Guide](tuning.md)).
 
 
 ## Usage on Windows
 1) Double click the `xmr-stak.exe` file
-2) Fill in the pool url, username and password
+2) Fill in the pool url settings, currency, username and password
 
 `set XMRSTAK_NOWAIT=1` disable the dialog `Press any key to exit.` for non UAC execution.