RELEASE_NOTES

cpuminer-opt is a console program run from the command line using the
keyboard, not the mouse.

cpuminer-opt now supports HW SHA acceleration available on AMD Ryzen CPUs.
This feature requires recent SW including GCC version 5 or higher and
openssl version 1.1 or higher. It may also require using "-march=znver1"
compile flag.

Security warning
----------------

Miner programs are often flagged as malware by antivirus programs. This is
a false positive, they are flagged simply because they are cryptocurrency 
miners. The source code is open for anyone to inspect. If you don't trust 
the software, don't use it.

The cryptographic hashing code has been taken from trusted sources but has been
modified for speed at the expense of accepted security practices. This
code should not be imported into applications where secure cryptography is
required.

Compile Instructions
--------------------

See INSTALL_LINUX or INSTALL_WINDOWS fror compile instruuctions

Requirements
------------

Intel Core2 or newer, or AMD Steamroller or newer CPU. ARM CPUs are not
supported.

64 bit Linux or Windows operating system. Apple and Android are not supported.
FreeBSD YMMV.

Change Log
----------

v3.9.9

Added power2b algo for MicroBitcoin.

Added generic yespower-b2b (yespower + blake2b) algo to be used with
the parameters introduced in v3.9.7 for yespower & yescrypt.

Display additional info when a share is rejected.

Some low level enhancements and minor tweaking of log output.

RELEASE_NOTES (this file) and README.md  added to Windows release package.

v3.9.8.1

Summary log report will be generated on stratum diff change or after 5 minutes,
whichever comes first, to prevent incorrect data in the report.

Removed phi2-lux alias (introduced in v3.9.8) due to Luxcoin's planned fork
to a new algo. The new Luxcoin algo is not supported by cpuminer-opt.
Until the fork Luxcoin can be mined using phi2 algo.

--hide-diff option is deprecated and has no effect. It will be removed in a
future release.

v3.9.8

Changes to log output to provide data more relevant to actual mining
performance.
phi2 can now handle pools with a mix of coins that use and don't use roots.
phi2-lux added as an alias for phi2 as they are identical except for roots.
Add x16rv2 algo for Ravencoin fork.

v3.9.7

Command line option changes:

"-R" is no longer used as a shortcut for "--retry-pause", users must
use the long option.

New options:

-N, --param-n: set the N parameter for yescrypt, yespower or scrypt algos
-R, --param-r: set the R parameter for yescrypt or yespower algos, scrypt is
     hardcoded with R=1
-K, --param-key: set the client key/pers parameter for yescrypt/yespower algos.

These options can be used to mine yescrypt or yespower variations using
the generic yescrypt or yespower algo name and specifying the parameters
manually. They can even be used to mine variations that aren't formally
supported by a unique algo name. Existing algos can continue to to be mined
using their original name without parameters.

v3.9.6.2

New algo blake2b.
Faster myr-gr on Ryzen using SHA.
Faster blake2s SSE2.
Small speedup of around 1% for several other algos.

v3.9.6.1

New algos: x21s, hex (alias x16r-hex).

v3.9.6

New algos: bmw512, x16rt, x16rt-veil (alias veil), x13bcd (alias bcd).

v3.9.5.4

Fixed sha256q AVX2 poor performance.
Fixed skein2 buffer overflow and restored bswap-interleave optimization.
More restructuring.

v3.9.5.3

Fix crash mining hodl with aes-sse42.
More restructuring and share report tweaks.

v3.9.5.2

Revert bswap-interleave optimization for causing crashes on Windows.

v3.9.5.1

Fixed skein2 crash on Windows.

Fixed CPU temperature reading on Ubuntu 19.04.

Realigned log message colours, blue is used to report normal activity and
yellow is only used to report abnormal activity.

Changed stats colours, yellow now means below average, white is average
range. Tweaked colour thresholds.

Changed colour of stratum difficulty change messages to blue to match other
normal protocol messages. Blue messages (block, stratum, submit) will no
longer be displayed when using -q option.

Added job id to new block, share submit, and share result messages and added
new nessage when a new job is received for an existing block. This will for
better troubleshooting of invalid job id rejects seen at zergpool.

Some more restructuring.

v3.9.5

New share reporting information includes calculation of equivalent hashrate
based on share difficulty, network latency, 5 minute summary.
Per-thread hash rate reports are disabled by default.
New command line option --hash-meter added to enable per-thread hash rates.


v3.9.4

Faster AVX2 for lyra2v3, quark, anime.
Fixed skein AVX2 regression (invalid shares since v3.9.0) and faster.
Faster skein2 with 4way AVX2 enabled.
Automatic SHA override on Ryzen CPUs, no need for -DRYZEN compile flag.
Ongoing restructuring.

v3.9.3.1

Skipped v3.9.3 due to misidentification of v3.9.2.5 as v3.9.3.
Fixed x16r algo 25% invalid share reject rate. The bug may have also
affected other algos.

v3.9.2.5

Fixed 2 regressions: hodl AES detection, x16r invalid shares with AVX2.
More restructuring.

v3.9.2.4

Yet another affinity fix. Hopefully the last one.

v3.9.2.3

Another cpu-affinity fix.
Disabled test code that fails to compile on some CPUs with limited
AVX512 capabilities.

v3.9.2.2

Fixed some day one cpu-affinity issues.

v3.9.2

Added sha256q algo.
Yespower now uses openssl SHA256, but no observable hash rate increase
on Ryzen.
Ongoing rearchitecting.
Lyra2z now hashes 8-way on CPUs with AVX2.
Lyra2 (all including phi2) now runs optimized code with SSE2.

v3.9.1.1

Fixed lyra2v3 AVX and below.

Compiling on Windows using Cygwin now works. Simply use "./build.sh"
just like on Linux. It isn't portable therefore the binaries package will
continue to use the existing procedure.
The Cygwin procedure will be documented in more detail later and will
include a list of packages that need to be installed.

v3.9.1

Fixed AVX2 version of anime algo.

Added sonoa algo.

Added "-DRYZEN_" compile option for Ryzen to override 4-way hashing when algo 
contains sha256 and use SHA instead. This is due to a combination of
the introduction of HW SHA support combined with the poor performance
of AVX2 on Ryzen. The Windows binaries package replaces cpuminer-avx2-sha
with cpuminer-zen compiled with the override. Refer to the build instructions
for more information.

Ongoing restructuring to streamline the process, reduce latency,
reduce memory usage and unnecessary copying of data. Most of these
will not result in a notoceably higher reported hashrate as the
change simply reduces the time wasted that wasn't factored into the
hash rate reported by the miner. In short, less dead time resulting in
a higher net hashrate.

One of these measures to reduce latency also results in an enhanced
share submission message including the share number*, the CPU thread,
and the vector lane that found the solution. The time difference between
the share submission and acceptance (or rejection) response indicates
network ltatency. One other effect of this change is a reduction in hash
meter messages because the scan function no longer exits when a share is 
found. Scan cycles will go longer and submit multiple shares per cycle.
*the share number is antcipated and includes both accepted and rejected
shares. Because the share is antipated and not synchronized it may be
incorrect in time of very rapid share submission. Under most conditions
it should be easy to match the submission with the corresponding response.

Removed "-DUSE_SPH_SHA" option, all users should have a recent version of
openssl installed: v1.0.2 (Ubuntu 16.04) or better. Ryzen SHA requires
v1.1.0 or better. Ryzen SHA is not used when hashing multi-way parallel.
Ryzen SHA is available in the Windows binaries release package.

Improved compile instructions, now in seperate files: INSTALL_LINUX and
INSTALL_WINDOWS. The Windows instructions are used to build the binaries
release package. It's built on a Linux system either running as a virtual
machine or a seperate computer. At this time there is no known way to
build natively on a Windows system.

v3.9.0.1

Isolate Windows CPU groups code when CPU groups support not explicitly defined.

v3.9.0

Added support for Windows CPU groups.
Fixed BIP34 coinbase height.
Prep work for AVX512.
Added lyra2rev3 for the vertcoin algo change.
Added yespower, yespowerr16 (Yenten)
Added phi2 algo for LUX
Discontinued support for cryptonight and variants.

v3.8.8.1

Fixed x16r.
Removed cryptonight variant check due to false positives.
API displays hashrate before shares are submitted.

v3.8.8

Added cryptonightv7 for Monero.

v3.8.7.2

Fixed argon2d-dyn regression in v3.8.7.1.
Changed compile options for aes-sse42 Windows build to -march=westmere

v3.8.7.1

Fixed argon2d-uis low difficulty rejects.
Fixed argon2d aliases.

v3.8.7

Added argon2d4096 (alias argon2d-uis) for Unitus (UIS).
argon2d-crds and argon2d-dyn renamed to argon2d250 and argon2d500 respectively.
  The old names are recognized as aliases.
AVX512 is now supported for argon2d algos, Linux only.
AVX is no longer a reported feature and an AVX Windows binary is no longer
  provided. Use AES-SSE42 build instead.

v3.8.6.1

Faster argon2d* AVX2.
Untested AVX-512 for argon2d*, YMMV.

v3.8.6

Fixed argon2 regression in v3.8.5.
Added x16s algo for Pigeoncoin.
Some code cleanup.

v3.8.5

Added argon2d-crds and argon2d-dyn algos.
sha256t 8 way AVX2 & 4 way SSE4.2 optimized.
CPUs with SSE4.2 get optimizations previously reserved for AVX.

v3.8.4.1

Fixed sha256t low difficulty rejects.
Fixed compile error on CPUs with AVX512.

v3.8.4

Added yescryptr32 algo for WAVI coin.
Added URL to API data.
Improved detection of __int128 support (linux only)
Compile support for CPUs without SSSE3 (no binary support)

v3.8.3.3

Integrated getblocktemplate with algo_gate.
Added support for hodl gbt (untested).
Reworked some recent quick fixes.

v3.8.3.2

Reverted gbt changes from v3.8.0 that broke getwork.
Reverted scaled hash rate for API, added HS term in addition to KHS. 
Added blocks solved to console display and API.

v3.8.3.1

Fixed regression in v3.8.3 that broke several algos.

v3.8.3

More restoration of lost lyra2 hash.
8 way AVX2 and 4way AVX optimization for blakecoin, vanilla & blake2s.
8 way AVX2 for lbry.
Scaled hashrate for API output.
A couple of GBT fixes.

v3.8.2.1

Fixed low difficulty rejects with allium.
Fixed qubit AVX2.
Restored lyra2z lost hash.
Fixed build.sh

v3.8.2

Fixed and faster myr-gr.
Added x12 algo (Galaxie Cash), allium algo (Garlicoin).
Faster lyra2rev2, lbry, skein.
Large reduction in compiler warnings.

v3.8.1.1

Fixed Windows AVX2 crash.

v3.8.1

Fixes x16r on CPUs with only SSE2.
More Optimizations for X algos, qubit & deep.
Corrected algo optimizations for scrypt and yescrypt, no new optimizations.

v3.8.0.1

Fixed x16r AVX2 low hash rate.

v3.8.0

4way no longer a seperate feature, included in AVX2.
Added x16r algo for Ravencoin, anime algo for Animecoin.
More 4way optimizations for X13 and up.
Tweaked CPU affinity to better support more than 64 CPUs.
Fixed compile problem on some old AMD CPUs.

v3.7.10

4way optimizations for lyra2rev2, lyra2h, quark, timetravel8, timetravel10
   x11evo, blakecoin.
Faster x13sm3 (hsr).
Added share difficulty to accepted message.

v3.7.9

Partial 4way optimizations for veltor, skunk, polytimos, lyra2z.
Additional 4way optimizations for X algos.
New algo yescryptr8 for BitZeny, not to be confused with original
yescrypt Globalboost-Y.

v3.7.8

Partial 4way optimization for most X algos including c11, xevan, phi, hsr

v3.7.7

Fixed regression caused by 64 CPU support.
Fixed lyra2h.

v3.7.6

Added lyra2h algo for Hppcoin.
Added support for more than 64 CPUs.
Optimized shavite512 with AES, improves x11 etc.

v3.7.5

New algo keccakc for Creative coin with 4way optimizations

Rewrote some AVX/AVX2 code for more consistent implementation and some
optimizing.

Enhanced capabilities check to support 4way, more precise reporting of
features (not all algos use SSE2), and better error messages when using
an incompatible pre-built version (Windows users).

v3.7.4

Removed unnecessary build options.

Added 4way support for tribus and nist5.

v3.7.3

Added polytimos algo.

Introducing 4-way AVX2 optimization giving up to 4x performance inprovement
on many compute bound algos. First supported algos: skein, skein2, blake &
keccak. This feature is only available when compiled from source. See above
for instcuctions how to enable 4-way during compilation.

Updated Dockerfile.

v3.7.2

Fixed yescryptr16
Changed default sha256 and sha512 to openssl. This should be used when
compiling with openssl 1.0.2 or higher (Ubuntu 16.04).
This should increase the hashrate for yescrypt, yescryptr16, m7m, xevan, skein,
myr-gr & others  when openssl 1.0.2 is installed.
Note: -DUSE_SPH_SHA has been removed in v3.9.1.
Users with openssl 1.0.1 (Ubuntu 14.04) may get better perforance by adding
"-DUSE_SPH_SHA" to CLAGS. 
Windows binaries are compiled with -DUSE_SPH_SHA and won't get the speedup.

v3.7.1

Added yescryptr16 algo for Yenten coin
Added SHA support to yescrypt and yescryptr16
Small code cleanup

v3.7.0

Fixed x14 misalignment bug.
Fixed decred stake version bug.
Getwork fixes for algos that use big endian data encoding: m7m, zr5, neoscrypt,
decred.

v3.6.10

Fixed misalignment bug in hsr.

v3.6.9

Added phi1612 algo for LUX coin
Added x13sm3 algo, alias hsr, for Hshare coin

v3.6.8

Fixed timetravel10 on Windows.

v3.6.7

Skunk algo added.
Tribus a little faster.
Minor restructuring.

v3.6.6

added tribus algo for Denarius (DNR)

configure removed from .gitignore. This should allow git clone to compile
on Windows/mingw.

Fixed CPU temperature monitoring on some CPUs (Linux only).

Fixed a compile error on FreeBSD (unsupported YMMV).

v3.6.5

Cryptonight a little faster.
Added jha algo (Jackpotcoin) with AES optimizations.

v3.6.4

Added support for Bitcore (BTX) using the timetravel10 algo, optimized for
AES and AVX2. 
"-a bitcore" works as an alias and is less typing that "-a timetravel10".

v3.6.3

Fixed all known issues with SHA support on AMD Ryzen CPUs, still no
 Windows binaries.

v3.6.2

SHA accceleration is now supported on AMD Ryzen CPUs when compiled from source,
  Windows binaries not yet available.
Fixed groestl algo.
Fixed dmd-gr (Diamond) algo.
Fixed lbry compile error on Ryzen.
Added SHA support to m7m algo.
Hodl support for CPUs without AES has been removed, use legacy version.

v3.6.1

Fixed data alignment issue that broke lyra2rev2 AVX2 on Windows.
Added preliminary support for HW accelerated SHA.
Solo mining most algos should now work, cryptonight confirmed exception.

v3.6.0

Preliminary support for solo mining using getwork.

v3.5.13

Found more speed in Cubehash, algo improvement depends on chain length,
  deep +8%, timetravel +1% , xevan +1%
Fixed a getwork bug, solo mining is not yet supported but testing is encouraged

v3.5.12

New algo sha256t for Onecoin (OC), 29% faster than ocminer version.
lyra2zoin algo renamed to lyra2z330, lyra2zoin and zoin still work
  as aliases.

v3.5.11

Fixed hmq1725 crash on Ubuntu 16.04
Fixed compile error in hodl.cpp with gcc 6.3
Fixed x11 crash on Windows with AVX2

v3.5.10

Some AVX2 optimizations introduced for Luffa, shorter chained algos such
  as Qubit and Deep should see the biggest gains, but many other algos should
  also see improvement, longer chains like xevan not so much.
Rewrite of Groestl AES, now 100% vectorized, small improvement.
build.sh and winbuild.sh initialize with distclean instead of clean.
Implemented a workaround for a compile error in hodl code when compiling
  with gcc 6.3.

V3.5.9

Reduced stack usage for hmq1725 and small speedup.
Added Deep algo optimized for AES and AVX2
Rewrite of SSE2 Luffa, midstate now supported in deep, qubit & timetravel
Small changes to algo-gate.

v3.5.8

Lyra2RE fixed on Windows, broken in v3.5.6.
Ported AES cryptonight optimizations from v3.5.7 to non-AES version
  with little improvement.
Marginal improvements to xevan and veltor.

v3.5.7

Cryptonight 5% faster

v3.5.6

Updated Lyra2z algo for new zcoin algo post block 2050.
Cleaned up Lyra2 code and increased performance
  - Lyra2Z (zcoin) +12%
  - Lyra2REv2 +11%
  - Lyra2RE +6%
Fixed x11evo algo performance on Windows.
Timetravel algo 3% to 5% faster
Whirlpool algo 15% faster.
Removed aclocal.m4 from .gitignore.

v3.5.5

x11evo fixed on Windows but at reduced performance.
Changed benchmark stats collection default to false and
  added proper user and password checks to enable it.

v3.5.4

x11evo fixed (broken in v3.5.2) and optimized 23% faster
Small improvements of 1% to 3% on many algos including timetravel,
   xevan and cryptonight.
More code cleanup and compiler warning reduction.
Improved checking for missing command line arguments.

v3.5.3

More optimizations
  Timetravel +16%
  Xevan       +3%
  Qubit      +12%

V3.5.2

Timetravel (machinecoin) added and optimized.

v3.5.1

Bastion 9% faster with AES, benchkmark still not working.
Worked around git automatically removing m4 directory.
Fixed occasional compile error in algo-gate.h.

v3.5.0

Fixed blakecoin and vanilla increasing rejects with number of threads.
Removed support for SSE2 Groestl functions. SSE2 groestl remains available
  in v3.4.12 and the legacy branch.
It is no longer necessary to specify stratum+tcp:// in the url, it is assumed
  and is the only supported protocol.

v3.4.12

lyra2z (zcoin) modified for blocks after 8192
fixed scryptjane to support various N factors

v3.4.11

groestl algo AES optimized +200%
myr-gr algo AES optimized +100%

v3.4.10

xevan AES optimized +35%

v3.4.9

fixed zr5, broken in v3.4.8
added xevan algo (Bitsend, BSD) with 10% improvement
added lyra2zoin (Zoin, ZOI) fully optimized but YMMV

v3.4.8

added zcoin support, optimized for AVX2 but no increase in performance
fixed API display of diff for cryptonight
--show-diff is now the default, use "--hide-diff" to disable
cleaned up some cpuminer-multi artifacts

v3.4.7

fixed benchmark, except for x11evo
added CPU temperature to share submission report (Linux only)

v3.4.6

For users:
- cryptolight algo is now supported with AES optimizations
- display format changed for share submissions
    - colour keyed "Accepted" or "Rejected" status.
    - reject count and rate displayed when share is rejected.

For developers:

- code restructuring for detecting new work
    - cleaned up detection and handling of new work
    - removed call to stratum_gen_work from niner_thread.
    - eliminated gen_work_now gate function.
    - renamed gate function init_nonce to get_new_work.
    - renamed gate function alloc_scratchbuf to miner_thread_init,
      removed all scracthbuf references from miner_thread and moved
      implementation to the local algo files of those algos that need it.
    - moved most gate targets from algo-gate.c to cpu-miner.c removing
      most mining related code from algo-gate-api.c.

v3.4.5

fixed stale share rejects mining cryptonight at Nicehash
fixed compile error on Westmere CPUs

v3.4.4

fixed compile errors on Westmere CPUs, this is an interim fix that
  will compile without AES on Westmere
added support for cryptonight at Nicehash, some rejects may be produced
  at Nicehash only.

v3.4.3

imported optimized m7m, +42%

v3.4.2

added veltor algo
tweaked lyra2 AVX/AVX2 code for small improvement.

v3.4.1

big AVX2 optmizations for lyra2 +35%, lyra2v2 +11%, AVX also faster
fixed hmq1725

v3.4.0

fixed Windows compile error introduced in v3.3.9
fixed x11gost, broken in v3.3.7
AVX2 optimizations improving many algos:
   - Lyra2RE  +3%
   - Lyra2REv2  +19%
   - x11gost (sib) +6%
   - x11evo +2.4%
   - c11 +6.9%
   - x11 +5%
   - x13 +5%
   - x14 +3.6%
   - x15 +2.4%
   - x17 +2.8%
   - qubit +8.4%