# rieMiner/Search

Here are the instructions to look for large prime constellations and attempt new records using the rieMiner's Search Mode. We assume that you already downloaded rieMiner from here or built it.

## Preliminary remarks

You should have a recent (less than 3 years) and high-end processor (at least 8 cores) if you want to try to beat records, as it would take a lot of time to find a record with slow processor. Look at the rieMiner benchmarks to have an idea of how different CPUs perform. Having 16 GiB or more is also recommended (especially if you mine shorter tuples, but for longer constellations 8 or even 4 GiB could be enough).

Please note that in this competition, luck is involved (the appearance of prime constellations of a certain length can be modeled as a Poisson Process). We can precisely estimate the average time to find a constellation of a certain length or how much time is needed to have 50% chance to find one, but there is no way to predict when exactly you will find a record. You may be lucky and find one pretty quickly, as well as having bad luck and not finding anything during several multiples of the estimated average time, that is part of the game!

The Search Mode is offline and independent of the Riecoin network. You will not find any Riecoin block nor get payouts, though you can check if there is a bounty for beating a record. Alternatively, you can also do usual mining and configure rieMiner in order to find records.

The list of records is maintained by a mathematician outside the Riecoin community, Tony Forbes, and can be found here. He is the person to contact if you find a new record, and you are of course encouraged to share your result to the Riecoin community! We also have a list of records found using Riecoin software.

## Prime constellation pattern and Difficulty choice

There is one record for every prime constellation pattern, so you have to choose one. The choice can be based on personal preference, or whether the record would be easier or in contrary more challenging and rewarding to beat. Shorter tuples are more suited for systems with a lot of cores (more than 16) and memory while longer ones can cause a lot of CPU Underuse and reduce the efficiency of many cores.

Constellations having different patterns but the same length are as hard to find, so we tend to care less about the actual pattern and only consider their lengths for the record.

rieMiner is suited to beat records for constellations of length 5 to 11, but should not be used for other patterns. The table below summarizes the different choices. The average time is a rough estimation for a Ryzen 7 3700X, and there is also the time after which you had 50% chance of finding a record (multiply the average time by ${\displaystyle \log(2)}$). Of course if you have ThreadRippers or other computer beasts, you could beat records in much less time, though remember that luck is an important factor.

Caption text
Length Suggested Difficulty (current record) Approximate average time for a 3700X (50%)
5 5400 (~5335) 250 days (137 days)
6 3500 (~3445) 1.5 years (1 year)
7 1800 (~1750) 50 days (35 days)
8 1075 (1025) 25 days (17 days)
9 725 (709) 35 days (24 days)
10 540 (517) 110 days (76 days)
11 375 (~360) 150 days (104 days)

Feel free to use a higher Difficulty than suggested if you have a lot of computing power or are feeling lucky.

## rieMiner configuration

Now, you must configure rieMiner with a `rieMiner.conf` file next to the rieMiner binary.

Here is a template.

```Mode = Search
Difficulty = 540
ConstellationPattern = 0, 2, 4, 2, 4, 6, 2, 6, 4, 2
```

## Search

You should now be ready to look for a record. Good luck!

If you are looking for a ${\displaystyle k}$-tuple, don't discard the ${\displaystyle (k-1)}$-tuples as you can submit them as well and usually get easy top 10 submissions (they also act as consolation prizes in case you are unlucky and don't find a ${\displaystyle k}$-tuple). They will also be shown in the miner. By default, these tuples will be saved in a `Tuples.txt` file next to the binary.

### Submit a record

Did you find a record? Congratulations!

Contact Tony Forbes from the link above (his email is given on his page). Don't forget to mention that you found the record with rieMiner so it gets credited.

Note that you may be asked to prove that your numbers are really prime (rieMiner only makes probabilistic Fermat tests). In this case you can look for such prime proving software or ask in the #competition channel in Discord.