X11 SGMiner Help

[DIV1D3]

Hi all, I'm finally really getting ready to mine (X11 Multipool - Vert) and I'm really left behind on almost everything there is in the current Crypto world.

So I've been on Bitcointalk and the Vertcoin subreddit to try and educate myself on the current events and expectations of new crypto algorithms and some more specific coins.

And here I am coming back to LTT to ask for you guys to help me out on just what the hell is happening. I'm sure there would be quite a few members here who are quite experienced with everything crypto atm and I really would like to be up to date with all relevant information. 

I'd greatly appreciate your enlightenment.

 

Cheers!

 

Edit:

Please refer to latest post for current info on the situation.

[RuecanOnRails]

You will be much better off continuing to read and ask on bitcointalk forum and coin specific subreddits.

 

I'm not entirely sure what your question is, so I'm not sure what to say. Are you looking at just Vertcoin? I know it's staging an algorithm switch to lyra2. Asking what's happening in the altcoin world is a very broad question as its a constantly changing landscape. There really aren't many experienced cryptocurrency users here at LTT forum unfortunately. My guess for reasons why would be a general skeptical view on all things Cryptocurrency from this community leading to an unfriendly place for open discussion.

[DIV1D3]

You will be much better off continuing to read and ask on bitcointalk forum and coin specific subreddits.

 

I'm not entirely sure what your question is, so I'm not sure what to say. Are you looking at just Vertcoin? I know it's staging an algorithm switch to lyra2. Asking what's happening in the altcoin world is a very broad question as its a constantly changing landscape. There really aren't many experienced cryptocurrency users here at LTT forum unfortunately. My guess for reasons why would be a general skeptical view on all things Cryptocurrency from this community leading to an unfriendly place for open discussion.

I am just asking about some crucial events that have happened and will take place. 

I'm aware that Vertcoin is switching to Lyra2 (fairly why I put "Algo switches" in the title) but I have no idea as to what it entails, I'll make a post on Vertcoin's subreddit as well as Bitcointalk very soon, just wanted to see if I could get an overview as to what's happening in the crypto world. 

I thought there would be quite a few (7-10) members that have a decent amount of knowledge about events and such, though I have experienced many threads that just die off because no one can supply me with what I'd like to know. 

 

Basically I'd like to know what these things entail (I'll be searching and asking elsewhere, just would like to ask here too):

• Hard forking
• Algorithm switching
• Most promising algos right now and for the future 
• General terms/phrases that are being focused on

[RuecanOnRails]

 

I am just asking about some crucial events that have happened and will take place. 

I'm aware that Vertcoin is switching to Lyra2 (fairly why I put "Algo switches" in the title) but I have no idea as to what it entails, I'll make a post on Vertcoin's subreddit as well as Bitcointalk very soon, just wanted to see if I could get an overview as to what's happening in the crypto world. 

I thought there would be quite a few (7-10) members that have a decent amount of knowledge about events and such, though I have experienced many threads that just die off because no one can supply me with what I'd like to know. 

 

Basically I'd like to know what these things entail (I'll be searching and asking elsewhere, just would like to ask here too):

• Hard forking
• Algorithm switching
• Most promising algos right now and for the future 
• General terms/phrases that are being focused on

 

 

There's over 100,000 members only 7-10 is not many.

 

Ah ok so you want definitions, I can try to quickly do that

 

 

Hard forking - A hard fork is created when there is a fundamental change in the coins protocol causing the old version to be incompatible with the new resulting in a required upgrade. Continuing to use the previous version will create an blockchain that is separate and incomatible with the new main one. A hard fork can be done to change anything, though it requires complete consensus of the community. The hard forks are planned well in advanced and implemented in the core client to take effect after block n. There is generally nothing you need to do other than keep your local wallet client up to date. You can find more specifics from developers who announce upcomming hard forks. In Vertcoin's case, the hard fork will be done to switch the mining algorithm to lyra2. Because it's such a large change to the protocol it cannot be done in a softfork. https://vertcoin.org/wp/pow-algorithm-upgrade-lyra2/

 

Algorithm switching - Transactions are verified and secured into the blockchain through mining. Mining relies on hashing the transactions with a specific algorithm (there's more to it than that). Coins which opt to switch their algorithm do so for a couple of reasons. It could be that the cryptography in that algorithm was found to be weakened, or they do it to prevent ASICs from being developed. ASICs do one thing, and do it very well. You can't successfully program an ASIC to mine multiple algorithms, by changing the algorithm of your coin you de-incentivize ASIC companies from putting research into developing them. This is done at the security risk of the coin, because many view ASICs to be evil. Changing the algorithm to avoid ASICs becomes a cat and mouse game.

 

Most promising algos - Honestly I'd say there's nothing wrong with SHA-256 as used in Bitcoin. It's known to be secure, reliable, and efficient. This doesn't bode well for would be gpu miners as they cannot compete.

New coins launching with "new" algorithms have just about become a flavour of the week. Most of the time they don't offer better security, or benefits outside of being aimed at being mine-able on certain consumer level hardware.

 

Post your list of terms and phrases, If I have time I'll do some quick basic replies.. Or a google search would likely find relevant information.

[DIV1D3]

There's over 100,000 members only 7-10 is not many.

 

Ah ok so you want definitions, I can try to quickly do that

 

 

Hard forking - A hard fork is created when there is a fundamental change in the coins protocol causing the old version to be incompatible with the new resulting in a required upgrade. Continuing to use the previous version will create an blockchain that is separate and incomatible with the new main one. A hard fork can be done to change anything, though it requires complete consensus of the community. The hard forks are planned well in advanced and implemented in the core client to take effect after block n. There is generally nothing you need to do other than keep your local wallet client up to date. You can find more specifics from developers who announce upcomming hard forks. In Vertcoin's case, the hard fork will be done to switch the mining algorithm to lyra2. Because it's such a large change to the protocol it cannot be done in a softfork. https://vertcoin.org/wp/pow-algorithm-upgrade-lyra2/

 

Algorithm switching - Transactions are verified and secured into the blockchain through mining. Mining relies on hashing the transactions with a specific algorithm (there's more to it than that). Coins which opt to switch their algorithm do so for a couple of reasons. It could be that the cryptography in that algorithm was found to be weakened, or they do it to prevent ASICs from being developed. ASICs do one thing, and do it very well. You can't successfully program an ASIC to mine multiple algorithms, by changing the algorithm of your coin you de-incentivize ASIC companies from putting research into developing them. This is done at the security risk of the coin, because many view ASICs to be evil. Changing the algorithm to avoid ASICs becomes a cat and mouse game.

 

Most promising algos - Honestly I'd say there's nothing wrong with SHA-256 as used in Bitcoin. It's known to be secure, reliable, and efficient. This doesn't bode well for would be gpu miners as they cannot compete.

New coins launching with "new" algorithms have just about become a flavour of the week. Most of the time they don't offer better security, or benefits outside of being aimed at being mine-able on certain consumer level hardware.

 

Post your list of terms and phrases, If I have time I'll do some quick basic replies.. Or a google search would likely find relevant information.

Yeh, but if there are about 3/4 members that are quite helpful and knowledgeable than I'd be fine with that. 

Cheers, thanks for the info, was just setting up my mining PC (what I'm using to type this atm), cleaning up all the cables and uninstalling a few things from the HDD. 

Thanks for explaining hard forking and algorithm switching, knew some of the things involved but now I actually know about them fully. 

With the algos I was thinking about Groestl, X11-15, Lyra2 and other Scrypt variants. Like which ones you think may just die off, and which ones you think may continue on. 

And with the phrases I was thinking that you might just call up a few terms that are relevant in the crypto world, as anything new I'd most likely not know about. 

 

Edit: I heard about market cap before, just putting it here so if you like you can explain it (would like to know what the hell it is and what it affects), just investigating some of the thread on Bitcointalk to get a better understanding of how the crypto world revolves. 

[RuecanOnRails]

If you're looking to try and mine for nothing but profit, I'd recommend you try every available hashing algorithm you can to find your hardware's max hashrate. With your max speeds across several algorithms you can use profitability calculators to compare the various coins and find whats best to mine at that moment. Keep in mind, coin profitability changes constantly.

 

I almost recommend mining for a coin you want to support the network for it's ideology, and not to make money. Depending no your set up and electric costs profitability may be lower than you expect. Here's a calculator with a few algorithms and prices of various coins using them. http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency

 

An algorithm wont die off unless their is something wrong and it's found to be insecure. Some coins like vertcoin may opt to change the algorithm to avoid ASICs but that doesn't mean other coins will do the same thing.

 

Market cap, is the total "value" of a supposed coin or asset. You find this number by multiplying the number of coins available by their current trading price. http://coinmarketcap.com/ The smaller the market cap, the easier it is for the coin to be manipulated by traders hoping to participate in pump and dump schemes.

[DIV1D3]

If you're looking to try and mine for nothing but profit, I'd recommend you try every available hashing algorithm you can to find your hardware's max hashrate. With your max speeds across several algorithms you can use profitability calculators to compare the various coins and find whats best to mine at that moment. Keep in mind, coin profitability changes constantly.

 

I almost recommend mining for a coin you want to support the network for it's ideology, and not to make money. Depending no your set up and electric costs profitability may be lower than you expect. Here's a calculator with a few algorithms and prices of various coins using them. http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency

 

An algorithm wont die off unless their is something wrong and it's found to be insecure. Some coins like vertcoin may opt to change the algorithm to avoid ASICs but that doesn't mean other coins will do the same thing.

 

Market cap, is the total "value" of a supposed coin or asset. You find this number by multiplying the number of coins available by their current trading price. http://coinmarketcap.com/ The smaller the market cap, the easier it is for the coin to be manipulated by traders hoping to participate in pump and dump schemes.

I'm definitely trying to make ROI, 3 280Xs, 2 700W PSU, a mobo, 4GB RAM and a G3220 doesn't sound like much, but getting profit out of this was why I got into mining (not the ideal mindset for a miner, but that's me). Also factoring in the fact that power is pretty dam high (no other options besides Ergon Energy), though I don't pay for electricity, creates a decent hike in the power bill, and instead of the annual power bill going up by $2,000 (Vertcoin), X11 consumes about half the amount, so instead of a $2,000 power bill, it'd only be about $1,000 (still a crap tonne). 

I'll actually try out a decent amount of algos now that you mention it, will take a decent amount of time but would get me used to tweaking configs and all the like. 

 

So, if a cryptocoin has, say, 500,000 more coins than another, and exchanges for 1 USD per coin more than the other, the value of the coin is less effected by pumping and dumping?

[RuecanOnRails]

I'm definitely trying to make ROI, 3 280Xs, 2 700W PSU, a mobo, 4GB RAM and a G3220 doesn't sound like much, but getting profit out of this was why I got into mining (not the ideal mindset for a miner, but that's me). Also factoring in the fact that power is pretty dam high (no other options besides Ergon Energy), though I don't pay for electricity, creates a decent hike in the power bill, and instead of the annual power bill going up by $2,000 (Vertcoin), X11 consumes about half the amount, so instead of a $2,000 power bill, it'd only be about $1,000 (still a crap tonne). 

I'll actually try out a decent amount of algos now that you mention it, will take a decent amount of time but would get me used to tweaking configs and all the like. 

 

So, if a cryptocoin has, say, 500,000 more coins than another, and exchanges for 1 USD per coin more than the other, the value of the coin is less effected by pumping and dumping?

 

The easiest way to quickly guess how susceptible a coin is to manipulation attacks would be to find out how much it would cost to get 10% of the available coins. The cheaper it is to obtain 10%, the cheaper it would be to attack. This isn't a great measurement as liquidity could be low which would prevent you from getting even 5% but it's a way to quickly see how much funding you would need to attack a coin.

 

The coin with a higher market cap can still be effected greatly by pump and dumps, but it can be harder for a manipulator to acquire enough coins to prop up the price and then dump.

 

Another thing to watch out for are pre-mines, or coins launching with a difficulty of 0. This gives the "developer" a large amount of coins for little to no work which leads to a higher risk of dumping.

[DIV1D3]

The easiest way to quickly guess how susceptible a coin is to manipulation attacks would be to find out how much it would cost to get 10% of the available coins. The cheaper it is to obtain 10%, the cheaper it would be to attack. This isn't a great measurement as liquidity could be low which would prevent you from getting even 5% but it's a way to quickly see how much funding you would need to attack a coin.

 

The coin with a higher market cap can still be effected greatly by pump and dumps, but it can be harder for a manipulator to acquire enough coins to prop up the price and then dump.

 

Another thing to watch out for are pre-mines, or coins launching with a difficulty of 0. This gives the "developer" a large amount of coins for little to no work which leads to a higher risk of dumping.

Nice, love all the information your giving me. It can be difficult to search because half the time I don't know what to search for. 

I think I might just get the 280X in my gaming PC and put it into my mining PC real soon, I'd really like to get into SGMiner and start getting used to everything. 

I've always steered clear of pre-mined coins, though I never knew about coins that launch with a difficulty of 0, cheers!

You've been great , hopefully I can start mining soon. 

[RuecanOnRails]

Nice, love all the information your giving me. It can be difficult to search because half the time I don't know what to search for. 

I think I might just get the 280X in my gaming PC and put it into my mining PC real soon, I'd really like to get into SGMiner and start getting used to everything. 

I've always steered clear of pre-mined coins, though I never knew about coins that launch with a difficulty of 0, cheers!

You've been great , hopefully I can start mining soon. 

 

An example of a coin that launched with 0 difficulty would be dogecoin. Allowing the first miner (the dev) to instantly mine around 500 million coins within I think it was 10 minutes before anyone else on the network was able to catch up, I don't remember exactly. Estimates of around 1 billion within the first hour or so. Many coins launch with an extremely low starting difficulty, and they cap the max it can adjust each time which keeps the instant mining window open longer.

[DIV1D3]

An example of a coin that launched with 0 difficulty would be dogecoin. Allowing the first miner (the dev) to instantly mine around 500 million coins within I think it was 10 minutes before anyone else on the network was able to catch up, I don't remember exactly. Estimates of around 1 billion within the first hour or so. Many coins launch with an extremely low starting difficulty, and they cap the max it can adjust each time which keeps the instant mining window open longer.

And then with all those coins they can pretty much manipulate the price (somewhat)?

[RuecanOnRails]

And then with all those coins they can pretty much manipulate the price (somewhat)?

They can do a massive sell off, eating through all the buy orders on the exchange and killing any price or stability the coin may have had. It's a way to make some quick money off the "community" by shady developers.

Start by placing buy orders at your pre determined price, then begin dumping down to near your buy order. This will instill panic and have others offload their coins into your buy orders. Then you start to buy back up pushing the price upwards. People that panic sold, now panic buy. As the price goes back up you prepare to repeat the process. Each time you come out ahead while everyone is always one step behind. 

[DIV1D3]

They can do a massive sell off, eating through all the buy orders on the exchange and killing any price or stability the coin may have had. It's a way to make some quick money off the "community" by shady developers.

Start by placing buy orders at your pre determined price, then begin dumping down to near your buy order. This will instill panic and have others offload their coins into your buy orders. Then you start to buy back up pushing the price upwards. People that panic sold, now panic buy. As the price goes back up you prepare to repeat the process. Each time you come out ahead while everyone is always one step behind. 

Wow, thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to keep away from coins that have been pre-mined and that start with a difficulty of 0. 

Though I'd think that multipools wouldn't have those coins in their list so I'm fairly confident that I can avoid such an incident. 

[DIV1D3]

@RuecanOnRails

So I'm actually having some trouble as to which freakin miner to use. 

http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/sph-sgminer/

Am I just using the second download on that page (SPH-SGMiner v4.1.0)?? 

Cheers!

[RuecanOnRails]

@RuecanOnRails

So I'm actually having some trouble as to which freakin miner to use. 

http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/sph-sgminer/

Am I just using the second download on that page (SPH-SGMiner v4.1.0)?? 

Cheers!

 

 

I'd start here. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=632503.0

SGminer has a pretty well rounded list of compatible algorithms that should mine most coins you're after.

 

Some coins will use more obscure or "new" algorithms which require it's own compatible mining software. Those you can find listed in the ANN thread of the various coins.

Make sure you read through the readme files as they contain guides on setting up and tuning your gpu for max results. For the most part you wont get good results by simply entering in someone else's settings. Achieving max hashrate can be time consuming and difficult as it varies from GPU to GPU, finding that perfect ratio of core and memory clock speeds is crucial.

[DIV1D3]

I'd start here. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=632503.0

SGminer has a pretty well rounded list of compatible algorithms that should mine most coins you're after.

 

Some coins will use more obscure or "new" algorithms which require it's own compatible mining software. Those you can find listed in the ANN thread of the various coins.

Make sure you read through the readme files as they contain guides on setting up and tuning your gpu for max results. For the most part you wont get good results by simply entering in someone else's settings. Achieving max hashrate can be time consuming and difficult as it varies from GPU to GPU, finding that perfect ratio of core and memory clock speeds is crucial.

Well I did get SGMiner v4.1.0, and also SGMiner Master, so I think I might just stick with SGMiner v4.1.0 atm. 

Yeh, ik about everyones GPUs being different, had a hard time getting decent hash rates while I was trying to mine VTC because everyone elses' configs didn't bode very well for my GPUs. 

So, I'm not sure why, but this is what is in v5.0 folder:

I thought that it would've looked more like this:

[AK0490]

Well I did get SGMiner v4.1.0, and also SGMiner Master, so I think I might just stick with SGMiner v4.1.0 atm. 

Yeh, ik about everyones GPUs being different, had a hard time getting decent hash rates while I was trying to mine VTC because everyone elses' configs didn't bode very well for my GPUs. 

So, I'm not sure why, but this is what is in v5.0 folder:

I thought that it would've looked more like this:

That just looks like the .cl files aren't in the "kernel" folder like normal, it should still work fine.

[DIV1D3]

That just looks like the .cl files aren't in the "kernel" folder like normal, it should still work fine.

Well I'm trying to get SPH-SGMiner v4.1.0 to work now, so... Which one is preferred?

And then I try and save a .bat file in the SPH-SGMiner folder, and this happens. 

Somehow I now need to obtain permission from myself. 

 

Edit:

Just made a folder called "kernal" and put all the .cl files in there, should work fine aye?

That's for SGMiner v5.0, just for clarification. 

[RuecanOnRails]

Well I'm trying to get SPH-SGMiner v4.1.0 to work now, so... Which one is preferred?

And then I try and save a .bat file in the SPH-SGMiner folder, and this happens. 

Somehow I now need to obtain permission from myself. 

 

You don't need to edit thread topic for different variations on your questions, makes first few posts seem out of context  

 

SPH-sgminer is nolonger developed and has been abandoned for sometime now. All features were integrated into the main SGminer.

 

Try to use take ownership to force user permissions. You can also try going into folder properties > security then changing permissions if for some reason your account doesn't have write permission. Another option, place the .bat file elsewhere and use the cd command to set the location to the miner.

[DIV1D3]

You don't need to edit thread topic for different variations on your questions, makes first few posts seem out of context

 

SPH-sgminer is nolonger developed and has been abandoned for sometime now. All features were integrated into the main SGminer.

 

Try to use take ownership to force user permissions. You can also try going into folder properties > security then changing permissions if for some reason your account doesn't have write permission. Another option, place the .bat file elsewhere and use the cd command to set the location to the miner.

Yeh I just try and keep the title in context to the relevant information that I am looking for, I just put "Please refer to latest post for current info on the situation." at the end there to make sure people don't get confused.

Thanks for the tips, I think I might just stick with SGMiner though after what you said about SPH-SGMiner not getting any love for a while.

I updated my other post with a picture of adding a kernal folder in SGMiner, it should work fine, shouldn't it?

 

Edit:

I just saved the .bat to my desktop, and then dragged and dropped it into the SGMiner folder, worked fine, after allow myself to do so. 

Finding it annoy how everything I want to do in my C: I need to have administrator permission (and just press continue), and I'm the only user of this PC ~.~

[DIV1D3]

@RuecanOnRails @AK0490

What about this .bat file:

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
color 0A

sgminer.exe -k x11mod -o stratum+tcp://www.poolurl.com:port -u username.worker -p password --failover-only -o stratum+tcp://www.poolurl.com:port -u username.worker -p password --thread-concurrency 8192 -I 18 --lookup-gap 2 --worksize 256 -g 2 --gpu-engine 1033 --gpu-memclock 1500

Just setting up a new wallet (formatted my HDD before and I didn't get the address details) and filling in that .bat file with SimpleMulti and Greenpool as my multipools respectively. 

 

Edit:

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
color 0A

sgminer.exe -k x11mod -o stratum+tcp://stratum.simplemulti.com:3353 -u VdTPVygeLwnYDXU39KYZ7vx6zzMVCATnKL.DIV1D3 -p x --failover-only -o stratum+tcp://x11.greenpool.org.uk:3333 -u VdTPVygeLwnYDXU39KYZ7vx6zzMVCATnKL.DIV1D3 -p x --thread-concurrency 8192 -I 18 --lookup-gap 2 --worksize 256 -g 2 --gpu-engine 1033 --gpu-memclock 1500

Though I'd just like to point out that I don't have the x11mod kernal, only these in the picture.

[RuecanOnRails]

@RuecanOnRails @AK0490

What about this .bat file:

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1

color 0A

sgminer.exe -k x11mod -o stratum+tcp://www.poolurl.com:port -u username.worker -p password --failover-only -o stratum+tcp://www.poolurl.com:port -u username.worker -p password --thread-concurrency 8192 -I 18 --lookup-gap 2 --worksize 256 -g 2 --gpu-engine 1033 --gpu-memclock 1500

Just setting up a new wallet (formatted my HDD before and I didn't get the address details) and filling in that .bat file with SimpleMulti and Greenpool as my multipools respectively. 

 

 

I'd change the intensity (-i) to 13 for 7970/280X as the starting point then work your way up to find the best hashrate. Once you start sgminer, you can write the settings to a json config file making it easier (imo) to make changes. If you go the route of the config file you can launch sgminer without any of the parameters in the batch file.

 

For multiple GPU's you can set them individually by separating values with a comma. Example -i 18, 18, 18 -g 2, 2, 2

[DIV1D3]

I'd change the intensity (-i) to 13 for 7970/280X as the starting point then work your way up to find the best hashrate. Once you start sgminer, you can write the settings to a json config file making it easier (imo) to make changes. If you go the route of the config file you can launch sgminer without any of the parameters in the batch file.

 

For multiple GPU's you can set them individually by separating values with a comma. Example -i 18, 18, 18 -g 2, 2, 2

Yeh, I thought an intensity of 18 was quite high, back when I was try to get a decent config for Vert I was running -I 13. 

I've never heard of a "json config file", is it just where you can make changes to the config without restarting SGMiner?

I was actually quite confused as to which I should use, a config or .bat. I knew that you could just run the miner from the .bat and that you had to start the miner from the .exe with the config, but I had different settings in both and I really had no idea what I was doing lol. 

Just out of convenience which do you prefer? I just find it a little easier to put the settings into a .bat, the config file just has the extra part of the {/} and quotation marks. 

Also, already knew that you could have separate settings for multiple GPUs, I was just thinking to keep them all the same and see what hash rate I get to start off with. 

[RuecanOnRails]

json is a lightweight data format. Cleanly displays all options and settings in text. it's the standard config file and you do still need to restart for changes to take effect.

 

Anything written in the .bat will override the config file.

 

Personally I prefer the config files as I find them easier to manage and having a list of every available option and setting leads to less reference look ups for parameters It really comes down to personal preference and everyone is different. I still use the bat as a shortcut to change colour, set allocation, and change a few other things on the rig when launching. The config file holds all the miners direct settings.

[DIV1D3]

json is a lightweight data format. Cleanly displays all options and settings in text. it's the standard config file and you do still need to restart for changes to take effect.

 

Anything written in the .bat will override the config file.

 

Personally I prefer the config files as I find them easier to manage and having a list of every available option and setting leads to less reference look ups for parameters It really comes down to personal preference and everyone is different. I still use the bat as a shortcut to change colour, set allocation, and change a few other things on the rig when launching. The config file holds all the miners direct settings.

Yeh I have never seen a  parameter in a config file with GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENTAGE, the colour and GPU_SYNC_USE_OBJECTS. 

I do like how the config file allows you to have it in list for as opposed to a long line of parameters in wordpad.