Loading unsloth/FLUX.2-dev-GGUF failed because detect_family knew only the
Qwen3-based FLUX.2-klein, so FLUX.2-dev (the full, Mistral-based Flux2Pipeline)
resolved to nothing and the load errored. Add a flux.2-dev family: Flux2Pipeline
+ Flux2Transformer2DModel over the black-forest-labs/FLUX.2-dev base repo (gated,
reachable with an HF token), with its FLUX.2 32-channel VAE and Mistral text
encoder wired for the sd-cli path from the open Comfy-Org/flux2-dev mirror.
text-to-image only: diffusers 0.38 ships no Flux2 img2img / inpaint pipeline for
dev. Frontend gets sensible dev defaults (28 steps, guidance 4), distinct from
klein's turbo defaults. Verified live: GGUF load resolves the family + gated base
repo and generates a real 1024x1024 image on GPU.
The chat picker treats a cached repo as an image model, and hides it, only
when it ships a diffusers model_index.json. Single-file, ComfyUI, and
ControlNet image checkpoints (an FP8 Qwen-Image, a z-image safetensors, a
Qwen-Image ControlNet) carry none, so they surfaced as loadable chat models.
Fall back to resolving the repo id against the known diffusion families, the
same resolver the Images backend loads from, so these checkpoints are tagged
text-to-image and stay in the Images picker only.
The Images picker's On Device tab hid every non-GGUF cached repo whenever a
task filter was active, so downloaded unsloth diffusion pipelines (bnb-4bit
and FP8 safetensors) never showed up there. List cached repos that pass the
task gate, limited under a filter to unsloth-hosted ones so base repos (which
fail the diffusion load trust gate) don't appear only to dead-end on click.
Chat behavior is unchanged: the task gate still drops image repos there.
Renamed the confusing "Transformer quant / GGUF default" control to "GGUF speed mode"
with an "Off (run the GGUF)" default, and reworded the hint to state plainly that FP8/INT8/
FP4 load the FULL base model (larger download + more VRAM) rather than re-packing the GGUF,
falling back to the GGUF if it can't fit. Behavior unchanged; labels/hint only.
The curated bnb-4bit / fp8 diffusion rows were filtered out of the Images picker's
Recommended list once cached (curatedSafetensorsRows dropped anything in downloadedSet),
so they vanished from the picker after the first load and could only be found by typing an
exact search. The row already renders a downloaded badge, matching how GGUF Recommended
rows stay visible when cached. Drop the exclusion so the curated safetensors always list.
handleModelSelect only loaded curated safetensors ids and GGUF variant picks; any other
non-GGUF pick (an on-device diffusers folder, or a future unsloth diffusers image repo
surfaced by search) silently did nothing. Treat such a pick as a full diffusers pipeline
load when the id is unsloth-hosted or on-device (the backend infers the family + base repo
and gates loads to unsloth/* or local paths), and show a clear message otherwise instead
of silently ignoring the click. Curated and GGUF paths are unchanged.
Some diffusers image repos (e.g. unsloth/Qwen-Image-2512-unsloth-bnb-4bit) carry a
stray "gguf" tag on the Hub but ship no .gguf files. The model search classified
them as GGUF from the bare tag, so the picker rendered the GGUF variant expander,
which then dead-ended at "No GGUF variants found." Trust the bare gguf tag only when
the repo is not a diffusers pipeline; the -GGUF name suffix and real gguf metadata
(populated via expand=gguf) remain authoritative, so genuine GGUF repos are unaffected.
Backend:
- Load non-GGUF safetensors models: full bnb-4bit pipelines and single-file
fp8 transformers, gated to the unsloth org plus a curated allowlist.
- Image-conditioned workflows built with Pipeline.from_pipe so they reuse the
loaded transformer/VAE/text-encoder with no extra VRAM: img2img, inpaint,
outpaint, and a hires-fix upscale pass.
- Instruction editing as its own family kind (Qwen-Image-Edit-2511,
FLUX.1-Kontext-dev) and FLUX.2-klein reference conditioning (single and
multi-reference) plus klein inpaint.
- Auto-resize odd-sized inputs to a multiple of 16 (and resize the matched
mask) so img2img/inpaint/edit no longer reject non-/16 uploads. Bound the
decoded image size and cap upscale output to avoid OOM on large inputs.
- Fixes: from_pipe defaulting to a float32 recast that crashed torchao
quantized transformers; image-conditioned calls forcing the slider size
onto the input image. Native sd.cpp engine rejects image-conditioned and
reference requests it cannot serve.
Frontend:
- Redesigned Images page with capability-gated workflow tabs (Create,
Transform, Inpaint, Extend, Upscale, Reference, Edit), a brush mask editor,
client-side outpaint, and a multi-reference picker.
- Advanced options moved to a right-docked panel mirroring Chat: closed by
default, toggled by a single fixed top-bar button that stays in place.
sd.cpp installer: pin the release, verify each download's sha256, add a
download timeout, and make the source repo configurable for a future mirror.
Adds the opt-in speed path for the GGUF diffusion transformer behind a
selectable speed mode (default off, so output is unchanged until a profile
is chosen):
- diffusion_eager_patches.py: shared eager fast-paths (channels_last,
attention/backend selection, fused norms and QKV) installed at load and
rolled back on unload or failed load.
- diffusion_compile_cache.py / diffusion_gguf_compile.py: a persistent
torch.compile cache and the GGUF-transformer compile wiring.
- diffusion_arch_patches.py: architecture-specific patches.
- diffusion_patch_backend.py: shared install/restore plumbing.
- diffusion_speed.py: speed-profile planning.
Tests for each module plus the benchmarking and probe scripts used to
measure speed, memory, and accuracy of the path.
Codex review on the native-engine routing:
- The /images/load route took the GPU arbiter (acquire_for(DIFFUSION) -> evict chat)
unconditionally after engine selection. A native sd.cpp load on a pure-CPU host
never touches the GPU, so that needlessly tore down the resident chat model. The
handoff is now gated: diffusers always takes it, a force-native sd.cpp load on a
CUDA/XPU/MPS box still takes it, but a native sd.cpp load on a CPU host skips it.
- sd_cpp status() hardcoded offload_policy 'none' / cpu_offload False even when
_run_load computed real offload flags (balanced/low_vram/cpu_offload off-CPU), so
the setting was unverifiable. status now derives them from state.offload_flags
(still 'none' on CPU, where the flags are empty).
- _run_load committed the new state without cancelling/waiting on a generation that
started during the (slow) asset download, so a stale sd-cli run against the OLD
model could finish afterward and persist an image from the previous model once the
new load reported ready. The commit now signals the in-flight cancel and waits on
_generate_lock before swapping _state (taken only at commit, so the download never
serialises against generation), mirroring the diffusers load path.
Tests: CPU native load skips the arbiter while a GPU native load takes it; status
reports offload active when flags are set; _run_load cancels and waits for an
in-flight generation before committing.
- sd_cpp_backend: stop truncating explicit seeds to 53 bits (mask to int64);
a large requested seed was silently collapsed (2**53 -> 0) and distinct seeds
aliased to the same image. Random seeds stay 53-bit (JS-safe).
- sd_cpp_backend: sanitize empty/whitespace hf_token to None so HfApi/hf_hub
fall back to anonymous instead of failing auth on a blank token.
- sd_cpp_backend: a superseding load now cancels the in-flight generation, so the
old sd-cli can no longer return/persist an image from the previous model.
- diffusion_engine_router: run the previous engine's unload() OUTSIDE the lock so a
slow 10+ GB free / CUDA sync does not block engine selection.
- diffusion_engine_router: probe sd-cli runnability (version()) before committing to
native, so a present-but-unrunnable binary falls back to diffusers at selection.
- diffusion_device: resolve a torch-free CPU target when torch is unavailable, so a
CPU-only install can still reach the native sd.cpp engine instead of failing load.
- tests updated for the runnability probe + a not-runnable fallback case.
Address review feedback on #6724:
- engine router: unload the engine being deactivated on a switch, so the old
model is not left resident-but-unreachable (the evictor only targets the active
engine).
- generate route: sd.cpp execution errors (nonzero exit / timeout / missing
output) now map to 500, not 409 (which only means not-loaded / cancelled).
- native batch: return per-image seeds and persist the actual seed for each image
so every batch image is reproducible.
- Qwen-Image native path: apply --sampling-method euler --flow-shift 3 per the
stable-diffusion.cpp docs; other families keep sd-cli defaults.
- honor speed_mode (native --diffusion-fa) and, off-CPU, memory_mode/cpu_offload
offload flags on the native load instead of hardcoding them off.
- fail the load when the sd-cli binary is present but not runnable (version()
now returns None on exec error / nonzero exit).
- size estimate: only treat the transformer asset as a possible local path.
When no CUDA/ROCm/XPU GPU is available, route diffusion load/generate to the
native stable-diffusion.cpp engine instead of diffusers, with diffusers as the
guaranteed fallback. On CPU sd.cpp is 1.4-2.8x faster and uses 1.5-2.2x less RAM.
- diffusion_engine_router: centralised engine selection (built on the existing
select_diffusion_engine), env opt-outs, MPS gating, recorded fallback reason.
- sd_cpp_backend (SdCppDiffusionBackend): the diffusers backend method surface
backed by sd-cli, with lazy binary install, registry-driven asset fetch,
step-progress parsing, and cancellation.
- diffusion_families: per-family single-file VAE + text-encoder asset mapping.
- sd_cpp_engine: cancellation support (process-group kill + SdCppCancelled).
- routes/inference + gpu_arbiter: drive the active engine via the router; the
API now reports the active engine and any fallback reason.
- tests for the backend, router, route selection, and cancellation.
The prequant-checkpoint builder applied the dense quant filter without the int8-only
M=1 modulation / conditioning-embedder exclusion the runtime path uses, so a built int8
checkpoint baked those projections as int8 and crashed (torch._int_mm needs M>16) at the
first denoise step on Flux / Qwen. Factor the scheme->exclusion decision into a shared
exclude_tokens_for_scheme() used by both the runtime quantise path and the offline builder
so they can never drift, and apply it in build_prequant_checkpoint.py. int8 prequant now
produces a working checkpoint on every supported model, giving int8 (the consumer-preferred
scheme) the same ~2x load-VRAM and download reduction fp8 already had.
The opt-in dense int8 transformer path crashed on Flux.1 and Qwen-Image with
'torch._int_mm: self.size(0) needs to be greater than 16, but got 1'. int8 dynamic quant
goes through torch._int_mm, which requires the activation row count M > 16. A DiT's AdaLN
modulation projections (Flux norm1.linear 3072->18432, Qwen img_mod.1 / txt_mod.1, Flux.2
*_modulation.linear) and its timestep / guidance / pooled-text conditioning embedders are
computed once from the [batch, dim] conditioning vector (M = batch = 1), not per token, so
they hit _int_mm at M=1 and crash. Their feature dims are large, so the existing
min_features filter did not exclude them.
Fix: the int8 filter now also skips any Linear whose fully-qualified name matches a
modulation / conditioning-embedder token (norm, _mod, modulation, timestep_embed,
guidance_embed, time_text_embed, pooled). These layers run at M=1 once per block and are a
negligible share of the FLOPs, so int8 keeps the full speedup on the attention / FFN layers
(M = sequence length). fp8 / nvfp4 / mxfp8 use scaled_mm, which has no M>16 limit and
quantises these layers fine, so the exclusion is int8-only. Sequence embedders
(context_embedder / x_embedder / txt_in, M = seq) are deliberately not excluded -- note
'context_embedder' contains the substring 'text_embed', which is why the token is the
specific 'time_text_embed', not 'text_embed'.
Measured on a B200 (1024px, transformer_quant=int8 + speed=default), int8 now runs on every
supported model and is the fastest dense path on Flux/Qwen (int8 runs full-rate vs fp8's
FP32-accumulate): FLUX.1-dev 9.62s eager -> 1.98s (4.86x, vs fp8 2.15s), Qwen-Image -> 1.87s
(5.57x, vs fp8 2.09s), FLUX.1-schnell -> 0.41s (3.59x). Z-Image and Flux.2-klein (already
working) are unchanged.
- diffusion_transformer_quant.py: add _INT8_EXCLUDE_NAME_TOKENS; make_filter_fn takes
exclude_name_tokens; quantize_transformer passes it for int8 only.
- hermetic test that the int8 filter excludes the modulation / embedder linears (and keeps
attention / FFN / sequence-embedder linears), while fp8 keeps them.
- scripts/int8_linear_probe.py: the meta-device probe used to enumerate each transformer's
Linear layers and derive the exclusion list.
Add opt-in step caching (First-Block-Cache) for the diffusion transformer. Across
denoise steps a DiT's output settles, so once the first block's residual barely
changes the remaining blocks are skipped and their cached output reused. diffusers
ships it natively (FirstBlockCacheConfig + transformer.enable_cache, with the
standalone apply_first_block_cache hook as a fallback).
Measured on Flux.1-dev (28 steps, 1024px): ~1.4x on top of torch.compile (2.83 ->
2.03s) at LPIPS ~0.08 vs the no-cache output, well inside the quality bar.
OFF by default and a per-load opt-in: the win scales with step count, so it is for
many-step models (Flux / Qwen-Image) and pointless for few-step distilled models
(e.g. Z-Image-Turbo at ~8 steps), where a single skipped step is a large fraction
of the trajectory. It composes with regional compile only with fullgraph=False (the
cache's per-step decision is a torch.compiler.disable graph break), which the speed
layer now switches to automatically when a cache is engaged. Best-effort: a model
whose block signature the hook does not recognise is caught and the load proceeds
uncached.
- new core/inference/diffusion_cache.py: normalize_transformer_cache + apply_step_cache
(enable_cache / apply_first_block_cache fallback; threshold auto-raised for a
quantised transformer per ParaAttention's fp8 guidance; lazy diffusers import).
- diffusion_speed.py: apply_speed_optims takes cache_active; compile drops fullgraph
when a cache is engaged.
- diffusion.py: apply_step_cache before compile; thread transformer_cache /
transformer_cache_threshold through begin_load -> load_pipeline and report the
engaged mode in status().
- models/inference.py + routes/inference.py: transformer_cache (off | fbcache) and
transformer_cache_threshold request fields, engaged mode in the status response.
- hermetic tests for normalisation, the enable_cache / hook-fallback paths, threshold
selection, and best-effort failure handling, plus route threading + validation.
- scripts/fbcache_flux_probe.py: the Flux validation probe (latency / speedup / VRAM /
LPIPS vs the compiled no-cache baseline).
Consumer / workstation GPUs halve fp8 (and fp16/bf16) FP32-accumulate tensor-core
throughput, while int8 runs at full rate (int32 accumulate is not nerfed). Public
benchmarks (SDNQ across RTX 3090/4090/5090, AMD, Intel) confirm int8 via torch._int_mm
is as fast or faster than fp8 on every consumer part, and the only path on pre-Ada
consumer cards without fp8 tensor cores. So when transformer_quant=auto, reorder the
arch tier to put int8 first on a consumer/workstation GPU (detected by the existing
_is_consumer_gpu name heuristic), while data-center HBM parts keep fp8 first.
Pure ladder reorder via _prefer_consumer_scheme; no new flags. Verified non-regression
on a B200 (still picks fp8). Hermetic tests for consumer Blackwell/Ada/workstation
(-> int8) and data-center Ada/Hopper/Blackwell (-> fp8).
Add a selectable attention kernel via the diffusers set_attention_backend
dispatcher. Attention is memory-bandwidth bound, so a better kernel is an
end-to-end win orthogonal to the linear-weight quantisation (it speeds the QK/PV
matmuls torchao never touches) and composes with torch.compile.
auto picks the best exact backend for the device: cuDNN fused attention
(_native_cudnn) on NVIDIA when a speed profile is active, measured ~1.18x
end-to-end on a B200 (Z-Image 1024px/8 steps) with LPIPS ~0.004 vs the default
(below the compile/quant noise floor); native SDPA elsewhere and when speed=off
(so off stays bit-identical). Explicit native/cudnn/flash/flash3/flash4/sage/
xformers/aiter are honored, and an unavailable kernel falls back to the default
rather than failing the load.
New core/inference/diffusion_attention.py (normalize + per-device select + apply,
best-effort, lazy imports). Set on pipe.transformer BEFORE compile in load_pipeline;
attention_backend threads through begin_load / load_pipeline / status like the other
load knobs. New request field attention_backend + status field. Hermetic CPU tests
for normalize / select policy / apply fallback, plus route threading + 422. Measured
via scripts/perf_levers_probe.py.
The Phase 8 fast transformer_quant path materialises the dense bf16 transformer on
the GPU and torchao-quantises it in place, so its load peak is ~2x GGUF's (~21 vs
13.4 GB) plus a ~12 GB download. Add a pre-quantized branch: quantise once offline
(scripts/build_prequant_checkpoint.py) and at runtime build the transformer skeleton
on the meta device (accelerate.init_empty_weights) and load_state_dict(assign=True)
the quantized weights, so the dense bf16 never touches the GPU.
Measured (B200, Z-Image fp8): full-pipeline GPU load peak 21.2 -> 14.6 GB (matching
GGUF's 13.4), on-disk 12 -> 6.28 GB, output bit-identical (LPIPS 0.0). It is the same
torchao config + min_features filter the runtime path uses, applied ahead of time.
New core/inference/diffusion_prequant.py (resolve_prequant_source +
load_prequantized_transformer, best-effort, lazy imports). diffusion.py
_load_dense_quant_pipeline tries the pre-quant source first and falls back to the
dense materialise+quantise path, then to GGUF, so the default is unchanged.
DiffusionLoadRequest gains transformer_prequant_path; DiffusionFamily gains an empty
prequant_repos map for hosted checkpoints (hosting deferred). Hermetic CPU tests for
the resolver, the meta-init+assign loader, and the backend branch selection +
fallbacks; GPU verification via scripts/verify_prequant_backend.py.
Validated NVFP4 on torch 2.11 + torchao CUTLASS FP4 in an isolated env. The FP4
tensor-core GEMM is genuinely active there (a 16384^3 GEMM hits ~3826 TFLOPS,
2.52x bf16 and 1.37x fp8), but it only beats fp8 on very large GEMMs. At the
diffusion transformer's shapes (hidden ~3072, MLP ~12288, M~4096) NVFP4 is both
slower (0.81x fp8 end to end on Z-Image 1024px) and less accurate (LPIPS 0.166
vs fp8's 0.044). Reorder the Blackwell auto ladder to fp8 before nvfp4 so auto is
correct even on a future MSLK-equipped box; nvfp4 stays an explicit opt-in. Add
scripts/nvfp4_t211_probe.py (extension diagnostics + GEMM micro + end-to-end).
scripts/nvfp4_probe.py measures NVFP4 via torchao on the real Z-Image transformer.
Finding (B200, 1024px/8 steps): NVFP4 is a torchao feature and DOES run with
use_triton_kernel=False (the default triton path needs the missing MSLK library), but
only at bf16-compile rate (0.667s vs fp8 0.592s) -- it dequantises FP4->bf16 rather than
using the FP4 tensor cores. The real FP4 speedup needs MSLK or torch>=2.11 + torchao's
CUTLASS FP4 GEMM. The smoke probe (default triton=True) already keeps NVFP4 out of auto
on this env, so auto correctly stays on fp8; NVFP4 activates automatically once fast.
Consumer/workstation GPUs (GDDR) halve fp8 FP32-accumulate throughput, so they want
fast (FP16) accumulate; data-center HBM parts (B200/H100/A100/L40) are not nerfed and
prefer the higher-precision FP32 accumulate. Add _is_consumer_gpu() (token-exact match
on the device name per NVIDIA's GPU list, so workstation A4000 != data-center A40;
GeForce/TITAN and unknown default to consumer) and gate the fp8 use_fast_accum on it.
Measured: fast accumulate is ~2x on consumer Blackwell and ~8% on B200 (0.608 vs 0.665s),
no overflow, quality below the quant noise floor. So the default leans to accuracy on
data-center; a new request field transformer_quant_fast_accum (null=auto, true/false=force)
lets the operator override per load (scripts/diffusion_bench.py --fp8-fast-accum auto|on|off).
187 diffusion tests pass (+ consumer detection, _resolve_fast_accum, and the override
threading).
scripts/fp8_overflow_check.py hooks every quantised linear during a real Z-Image
generation and reports max-abs + non-finite counts for use_fast_accum True vs False.
Confirms fast accumulation is an accumulation-precision knob, not an overflow one:
across 276 linears, including Z-Image's ~1.0e6 activation peaks (which overflow FP16),
0 non-finite elements and identical max-abs for both modes.
Consumer Blackwell halves tensor-core throughput on FP32 accumulate (fp8 419 vs 838
TFLOPS with FP16 accumulate; bf16 209), so:
- fp8 config locks use_fast_accum=True (Float8MMConfig). torchao already defaults it on;
pinning it guards consumer cards against a default change. On B200 it is identical
speed and slightly better quality (LPIPS 0.050 vs 0.091).
- the Blackwell auto ladder prefers fp8 over mxfp8 (measured faster + more accurate).
2:4 semi-structured sparsity evaluated and rejected (scripts/sparse_accum_probe.py):
2:4 magnitude-prune + fp8 gives LPIPS 0.858 (broken image) with no fine-tune, the
cuSPARSELt kernel errors on torch 2.9, and it does not compose with torch.compile
(our main ~2x). Documented as a dead end, not shipped.
Add an opt-in transformer_quant mode that loads the dense bf16 transformer and
torchao-quantises it onto the low-precision tensor cores, instead of the GGUF
transformer (which dequantises to bf16 per matmul and so runs at bf16 rate). On a
B200 (Z-Image-Turbo, 1024px/8 steps): auto picks fp8 at 0.614s vs GGUF+compile's
0.823s (1.34x), int8 0.626s (1.32x), both at lower LPIPS than GGUF's own 4-bit floor.
GGUF+compile stays the low-memory default and the fallback. The mode is gated on
CUDA + bf16 + resident VRAM headroom (the dense load peaks ~21GB vs GGUF's 13GB);
any unsupported arch/scheme, OOM, or quant failure falls back to GGUF with a logged
reason. auto picks the best scheme per GPU via a real quantise+matmul smoke probe
(Blackwell nvfp4/fp8/mxfp8, Ada/Hopper fp8, Ampere int8); a min-features filter skips
the tiny projections that crash int8's torch._int_mm. New module mirrors
diffusion_precision.py; quant runs before compile before placement.
184 -> tests pass; new test_diffusion_transformer_quant.py plus backend/route
coverage. scripts/diffusion_bench.py gains --transformer-quant; scripts/quant_probe.py
is the standalone torchao lever probe.
The opt-in `max` speed tier now compiles the repeated block with
mode=max-autotune-no-cudagraphs (dynamic=False) instead of the default mode:
Triton autotuning for GEMM/conv-heavier models, gated to the tier where a longer
cold compile is acceptable. CUDA-graph modes (reduce-overhead / max-autotune) are
deliberately avoided -- both crash on the regionally-compiled block (its static
output buffer is overwritten across denoise steps), measured.
Adds two reproducible benchmarks used to validate the optimization research:
- scripts/compare_engines.py: PyTorch (diffusers GGUF) vs native sd.cpp head-to-head.
- scripts/leverage_probe.py: coordinate_descent_tuning + FirstBlockCache probes.
Measured on B200 (Z-Image Q4_K_M, 1024px, 8 steps): default compile 0.80s/gen;
coordinate_descent_tuning 0.79s (within noise, already covered by max-autotune);
FirstBlockCache does not run on Z-Image (diffusers 0.38 block-detection / Dynamo).
Re-review of the diffusion stack (#6675/#6679/#6680) surfaced one real accuracy
bug and a dead-on-arrival speed path; this fixes both and adds the lossless /
near-lossless wins, all measured on a B200.
Correctness:
- TF32 global-state leak (fix). speed_mode=max flipped torch.backends.*.allow_tf32
process-wide and never restored them, so a later `off` load silently inherited
TF32 and was no longer bit-identical. Added snapshot_backend_flags /
restore_backend_flags (TF32 + cudnn.benchmark), captured before the speed layer
runs and restored on unload. Verified: load max -> unload -> load off is now
byte-identical (PSNR inf) to a fresh off.
- sd-cli timeout could hang forever. _run() blocked in `for line in stdout` and
only checked the timeout after EOF, so a child stuck in model load / GPU init
with no output ignored the timeout. Drained stdout on a reader thread with a
wall-clock deadline. Added a silent-hang regression test.
Speed (diffusers path), near-lossless, opt-in tiers:
- Regional torch.compile now runs on the GGUF transformer. The is_gguf gate (and
Z-Image's supports_torch_compile=False) were stale: compile_repeated_blocks
compiles and runs ~2.2x faster on the GGUF Z-Image transformer on
torch 2.9.1 / diffusers 0.38 (the per-op dequant stays eager, the rest of the
block compiles). Measured: off 1.80s -> default 0.82s/gen (+54.7%), PSNR 37.7 dB
vs eager -- far above the Q4 quant noise floor (~21 dB), so it does not move
output quality. Gate relaxed; default tier delivers it.
- cudnn.benchmark added to the default tier (autotunes the fixed-shape VAE convs).
- torch.inference_mode() around the pipeline call (lossless, strictly faster than
the no_grad diffusers uses internally).
Memory path:
- VAE tiling (not bit-identical >1MP) restricted to the model/sequential/CPU tiers;
the balanced (group) tier keeps exact slicing only, so it is now bit-identical to
the resident image (verified PSNR inf) and slightly faster.
- Group offload adds non_blocking + record_stream on the CUDA stream path to
overlap each block's H2D copy with compute (lossless; gated on the installed
diffusers signature so older versions still work).
Native (sd.cpp) path:
- native_speed_flags: a first-class speed knob (default -> --diffusion-fa, a
near-lossless CUDA win that was previously only added on offload tiers; max also
-> --diffusion-conv-direct). conv-direct stays opt-in: measured +45% on CUDA, so
it is never auto-on. Engine generate() merges it, de-duped against offload flags.
Default profile: a GGUF model with no explicit speed_mode now resolves to the
`default` profile (resolve_speed_mode), since compile's perturbation sits below the
quantisation noise floor and so does not reduce quality versus the dense reference;
out of the box a GGUF Z-Image generation drops from 1.80s to 0.81s. Dense models
stay `off` / bit-identical, and an explicit speed_mode -- including "off" -- is
always honored, so the byte-identical path remains one flag away and is the
regression reference.
Tooling: scripts/compile_probe.py (eager vs compiled GGUF probe), scripts/
perf_verify.py (the B200 verification above), and diffusion_bench.py gains
--speed-mode so the speed tiers are benchmarkable.
Tests: 183 passing (was 166); new coverage for the backend-flag snapshot/restore,
GGUF compile eligibility, the balanced tiling/slicing split, native_speed_flags +
the engine de-dup, and the sd-cli silent-hang timeout.
Builds on Phase 4's native stable-diffusion.cpp engine, extending it from
text-to-image to the wider feature surface, since sd.cpp supports all of these
through the binary already. Pure command-builder additions plus one engine
method, so the txt2img path is unchanged.
- sd_cpp_args.py: SdCppGenParams gains image-conditioning fields. init_img +
strength make a run img2img, adding mask makes it inpaint, ref_images drives
FLUX-Kontext / Qwen-Image-Edit style editing (repeated --ref-image), and
lora_dir + the <lora:name:weight> prompt syntax select LoRAs. New
SdCppUpscaleParams + build_sd_cpp_upscale_command for the ESRGAN upscale run
mode (input image + esrgan model, no prompt / text encoders).
- sd_cpp_engine.py: the subprocess runner is factored into a shared _run() so
generate() (now carrying the conditioning flags) and a new upscale() reuse
the same streaming / error / output-check path.
- scripts/sd_cpp_smoke.py: --task {txt2img,img2img,upscale} with --init-img /
--strength / --upscale-model / --upscale-repeats.
Tests: 10 new across the img2img / inpaint / edit / LoRA flag construction, the
upscale builder and its validation, and the engine's img2img + upscale paths.
Full diffusion suite 176 passing.
Verified on a B200 box through SdCppEngine: img2img (Z-Image-Turbo Q4_K, the
init image conditioned at strength 0.6, 4.8s) and ESRGAN upscale
(512x512 -> 2048x2048 via RealESRGAN_x4plus_anime_6B, 2.7s), both producing
coherent images. Video and the diffusers-path feature wiring are deferred.
Adds the CPU / Apple-Silicon tier of the two-engine strategy, mirroring the
chat backend's llama.cpp shell-out. Diffusers stays the default on CUDA / ROCm
/ XPU; this covers the hardware diffusers serves poorly, consuming the same
split GGUF assets Studio already curates.
- sd_cpp_args.py: pure sd-cli command builder. Maps the family to its
text-encoder flag (Z-Image Qwen3 to --llm, Qwen-Image to --qwen2vl, FLUX.1
CLIP-L + T5), and the diffusers memory policy (none/group/model/sequential)
to sd.cpp's offload flags (--offload-to-cpu / --clip-on-cpu / --vae-on-cpu /
--vae-tiling / --diffusion-fa), so one user knob drives both engines.
- sd_cpp_engine.py: SdCppEngine over a located sd-cli. find_sd_cpp_binary()
with the same precedence as the llama finder (env override, then the Studio
install root, then in-tree, then PATH), an is_available/version probe, and a
one-shot subprocess generate that streams progress and returns the PNG.
runtime_env() prepends the binary's directory to the platform library path
so a prebuilt's bundled libstable-diffusion.so resolves.
select_diffusion_engine() is the pure routing decision (GPU backends to
diffusers, CPU/MPS to native when present).
- install_sd_cpp_prebuilt.py: resolve + download the per-host prebuilt
(macOS-arm64/Metal, Linux x86_64 CPU, Vulkan/ROCm/Windows variants) into the
Studio install root. resolve_release_asset() is a pure, unit-tested
host-to-asset matrix.
- scripts/sd_cpp_smoke.py: end-to-end native generation harness.
Tests (CPU-only, subprocess/filesystem stubbed): 49 new across args, engine,
routing, runtime env, and the installer resolver. Full diffusion suite 166
passing.
Verified on a B200 box: built sd-cli (CUDA) and the prebuilt (CPU) both
generate Z-Image-Turbo Q4_K end to end through SdCppEngine: balanced (group
offload, 5.0s gen), low_vram (full CPU offload + VAE tiling, 13.4s), and the
dynamically-linked CPU prebuilt (50.4s on CPU), all producing coherent images.
Generalise the text-encoder precision knob from a fp8 bool to text_encoder_quant
(fp8 | nvfp4). nvfp4 quantises the companion text encoder to 4-bit via torchao
NVFP4 weight-only (two-level microscaling) on Blackwell's FP4 tensor cores; fp8
stays the broader-hardware path (cc>=8.9). Both are gated, best-effort, and run
before placement; status reports the mode actually engaged. This is the lean
realisation of GGUF-native text-encoder quant: 4-bit on the encoder without the
3045-line port.
Verified on Z-Image (B200, balanced/group where the encoder stays resident), vs the
bf16 encoder: nvfp4 cut generation peak VRAM 48% (10840 -> 5593 MB, the lowest TE
option, below whole-model offload) at near-fp8 quality (16.4 vs 17.1 dB PSNR), and
both quants ran faster than bf16. A memory-vs-quality tradeoff (off by default);
size it per model with the Phase 5 quality harness. diffusion_bench gains
--text-encoder-quant.
129 CPU tests pass.
