<p>First of all, let's make costs clear. If power is extremely cheap for you (perhaps you make your own or have surplus from self-generated solar/wind), and you properly cool your GPU so that it does not burn itself out, then you MIGHT get a tiny amount of BTC from mining with a rig.</p>
<p>Nice Hash gives you <a href="https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/nvidia-gtx-1080-ti" rel="nofollow noreferrer">about $1.78 per day</a> for renting out an Nvidia 1080 Ti, so you would get $1.78 per day if your electricity costs are zero. A 1080 Ti is about $1125 and uses 250W. (2190 kWh per year, if ran 24h/day). IF you have free electricity, and given that the Bitcoin difficulty does not go up, this means you get about a 57% yearly RoI, and from this you must pay the 22MWh of electricity.</p>
<p>Now that the return rate is clear, the vast majority of GPU miners use a <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPGPU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">GPGPU language such as CUDA or OpenCL</a>. You do not need 3D acceleration, &quot;only&quot; GPGPU.</p>
<p>But GPGPUs allow accelerating more general computation than 3D, so chances are it's a more difficult challenge to implement as free software. If you don't have drivers for 3D acceleration, it's even harder to have GPGPU drivers.</p>
<p>Here is the <a href="https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Nouveau feature matrix</a> for reverse-engineered nVidia drivers. Note the &quot;WIP&quot; in the last row - the &quot;Compute&quot; one. That is GPGPU support.</p>
<p>I share your frustration, I wish to sometime use GPUs as neural network accelerators, but I refuse to use nVidia's proprietary drivers which offer me little control. I could not even get the temperature of the GPU from the proprietary driver, let alone throttle the card to prevent it from melting itself.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-09T16:33:12.613Z
2020-12-09T16:33:12.613Z
danuker
<p>To mine Bitcoin you need to spend a few thousand dollars on the latest Bitcoin ASICs, join a pool and have nearly-free electricity. You can't mine Bitcoin with GPUs - this has not been feasible for many many years now.</p>
<hr />
<p>Footnote: the mining of altcoins is off-topic on <strong>bitcoin</strong>.stackexchange.com although there are other coin-specific stackexchange websites where you could ask this sort of question for a specific altcoin.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-24T15:26:45.753Z
Well, if I ask in the Bitcoin StackExchange it's because I ask for BTC. I just wonder why there's still ppl doing BTC GPU mining. I assume I'll have to mine another crypto if I'll use GPU, right? at least to feasibly mine a feasible one
Megver83
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-24T20:16:22.367Z
There are no people GPU mining BTC, except perhaps for educational purposes. It is a completely pointless waste of money.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-24T15:12:08.553Z
2020-08-24T15:12:08.553Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>I'm new to the mining world and want to start with a typical mining motherboard + GPUs rig setup. I plan to use a 100% FLOSS, GNU/Linux based, operating system (<a href="https://www.parabola.nu/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Parabola</a>, from which I'm a dev). The thing is that I'm not sure if the convenient GPUs I may use will work with 3D acceleration (due to the lack of free and open source firmware/drivers), although the rest of the features will. AFAIK, the GPUs are used for computing, calculations, etc., but nothing that would require 3D hardware acceleration, right? I think that's only needed for games and 3D modeling, although I'm not very sure about it. Is it necessary for mining?</p>
<p>Thanks in advanced.</p>

<mining-hardware><linux><gpu-mining><open-source><firmware>
Is 3D acceleration needed for GPU mining
Megver83
# Is 3D acceleration needed for GPU mining

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-08-24)

I'm new to the mining world and want to start with a typical mining motherboard + GPUs rig setup. I plan to use a 100% FLOSS, GNU/Linux based, operating system ([Parabola](https://www.parabola.nu/), from which I'm a dev). The thing is that I'm not sure if the convenient GPUs I may use will work with 3D acceleration (due to the lack of free and open source firmware/drivers), although the rest of the features will. AFAIK, the GPUs are used for computing, calculations, etc., but nothing that would require 3D hardware acceleration, right? I think that's only needed for games and 3D modeling, although I'm not very sure about it. Is it necessary for mining?

Thanks in advanced.

**Tags:** mining-hardware, linux, gpu-mining, open-source, firmware


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-12-09. Score: 1

First of all, let's make costs clear. If power is extremely cheap for you (perhaps you make your own or have surplus from self-generated solar/wind), and you properly cool your GPU so that it does not burn itself out, then you MIGHT get a tiny amount of BTC from mining with a rig.

Nice Hash gives you [about $1.78 per day](https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/nvidia-gtx-1080-ti) for renting out an Nvidia 1080 Ti, so you would get $1.78 per day if your electricity costs are zero. A 1080 Ti is about $1125 and uses 250W. (2190 kWh per year, if ran 24h/day). IF you have free electricity, and given that the Bitcoin difficulty does not go up, this means you get about a 57% yearly RoI, and from this you must pay the 22MWh of electricity.

Now that the return rate is clear, the vast majority of GPU miners use a [GPGPU language such as CUDA or OpenCL](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPGPU). You do not need 3D acceleration, "only" GPGPU.

But GPGPUs allow accelerating more general computation than 3D, so chances are it's a more difficult challenge to implement as free software. If you don't have drivers for 3D acceleration, it's even harder to have GPGPU drivers.

Here is the [Nouveau feature matrix](https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html) for reverse-engineered nVidia drivers. Note the "WIP" in the last row - the "Compute" one. That is GPGPU support.

I share your frustration, I wish to sometime use GPUs as neural network accelerators, but I refuse to use nVidia's proprietary drivers which offer me little control. I could not even get the temperature of the GPU from the proprietary driver, let alone throttle the card to prevent it from melting itself.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2020-08-24. Score: 0

To mine Bitcoin you need to spend a few thousand dollars on the latest Bitcoin ASICs, join a pool and have nearly-free electricity. You can't mine Bitcoin with GPUs - this has not been feasible for many many years now.

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Footnote: the mining of altcoins is off-topic on **bitcoin**.stackexchange.com although there are other coin-specific stackexchange websites where you could ask this sort of question for a specific altcoin.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Well, if I ask in the Bitcoin StackExchange it's because I ask for BTC. I just wonder why there's still ppl doing BTC GPU mining. I assume I'll have to mine another crypto if I'll use GPU, right? at least to feasibly mine a feasible one  
> **username_3**: There are no people GPU mining BTC, except perhaps for educational purposes. It is a completely pointless waste of money.  

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