A great tutorial about solo crunching!
I recommend all new members to join first a pool like http://www.grcpool.com .
Pool crunching infos can be found here: http://gridcoin.us/Guides/pool.htm
In a pool you see your work results on daily bases. You can see a lot of information in the pool statistics.
For solo mining you need some thousand gridcoins and a magnitude over 20, to get a billing period below a week.
While the set-up for pool mining is easier, it is a common misconception that you need thousands of GRC or a mag over 20 to solo mine.
The true requirement to be paid out for all your work is to stake at least once every 6 months. You can do that with a combination of balance through POS, or research through POR.
Your are right. If you don't stake in 6 Month you will loose your work payment. But who wants to see his work results after 6 month? Smaller billing periods are always better. You got a shorter feedback loop.
I am really sad that if have switch to fast to solo.
My first month in Gridcoin looked like this:
The first week my graphics card driver was a mess. Only 1/3 of possible work
performance. After that i lost working bonus for several weeks because of Mag. 0 issues.
Ah, don't worry about the zero mag issues - you will be paid out for work done once the superblocks return to normal. A new client has just been released, and there is a compulsory upgrade inbound in the future.
I do agree about the pool being nice for frequent payouts. Solo just feels more satisfying though. =)
Remember that you can always return to pool mining if you want.
Existing BOINC users would probably not want to join a pool because they would not be researching for their existing accounts anymore and would not gain any stats.
It's great for new members who have no existing experience with BOINC though. However, they still might not want to join the pool because they would not be able to vote on important matters.
Very true. My BOINC stats motivate me almost as much as the coins do :-)