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calibrate: measure the adaptive expert tier (--adapt-every / --adapt-swaps / --adapt-decay) - #907

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@star1872 star1872 commented Oct 5, 2026 •

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--calibrate measures the adaptive expert tier too: after the worker count, the engine's default tier against two
that swap more and remember longer, a restart each (as for the workers), kept only when it beats the default by more
than MIN_GAIN (3%).

Candidate --adapt-every --adapt-swaps --adapt-decay
default (engine: 4) (96) (0.7)
busier 1 80 0.97
busiest 1 160 0.97

apply() drops the three flags when the calibration keeps the default, so an older calibration's tier never lingers
(the same rule as the other settings).

Why

On a PC whose CPU reads the missed experts slowly, the CPU's share is most of a verify window, and the default tier
swaps about 24 experts per window. Measured in #906 (Xeon E5-2673 v3, DDR3, RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB on PCIe 3.0 x8, Q2_0,
setup's default config, 4 prompts x 2 passes, interleaved):

Tier with #764 without #764 (lag 1)
default 52.61 tok/s 48.71, 49.60, 49.55
every 1 / 80 / 0.97 54.67 - 55.25 53.19
every 1 / 160 / 0.97 56.90, 56.64 (+7.9%) -
every 1 / 240 / 0.97 56.36 -

Hit rate on the code-edit prompt 0.62 -> 0.73, CPU time in those windows 40.1 -> 28.8 ms. A routing trace replayed
offline (in #906) shows the misses follow the swaps per window more than the counting rule. A PC with a fast CPU and
RAM may not gain, which is why this is a measurement and not a new default.

Cost

Three engine starts more: with the model already in the page cache (the first measurement loaded it) each start is
seconds (16 s here), then one warm-up round and two measured rounds of the three calibration prompts with 512-token
answers (the tier needs some windows to follow a text; with the calibration's usual 128 tokens it did not show, see the
comment below). The whole calibration took 655 s on this PC; the setup message says about 10 minutes.

Test

tools/test_calibrate.py: test_adaptive_tier (a 10% faster candidate is kept, a 2% one is not, the candidates run
with the worker count chosen before, apply keeps and removes the flags); test_fewer_workers counts the extra
starts. All tools/test_setup_*.py pass.

Measured end to end

tools/calibrate.py on that PC (Q2_0, setup's default config): engine default 54.3, every 1 / 80 / 0.97 60.1,
every 1 / 160 / 0.97 60.6 tok/s: kept (+11.6%); the other settings stayed at their defaults. Any PC other than this
one is not measured.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Niko1221 and others added 30 commits October 2, 2026 09:33
…s falls back to the wheels (Niko1221#446)

rocm_root took /opt/rocm when bin/hipcc and lib/libhipblas.so* were there and the version was 7.0 or newer. A
runtime-only ROCm 7 (no -dev packages) has both, and the engine's cmake configure then failed on the missing
hip-lang package. The system ROCm now also needs lib/cmake/hip-lang/hip-lang-config.cmake (lib, lib64 or the
multiarch lib folder, where CMake looks) and include/hip/hip_runtime.h; without them setup warns, naming what is
missing, and takes the TheRock wheels path, as it already does for a ROCm older than 7.0.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
… a failed tuning says why (Niko1221#447)

tools/calibrate.py read any "gpu" list as a layer split and added --layer-split auto, so a one-card config with a
helper card for the expert tier ("gpu": [0] + --expert-cache-device1) was refused by the engine before it read a
weight, a "0,2" string never got its split, and split_skip_if_fits was ignored. The tuner now builds the arguments
with serve.server.engine_args, the same as a normal start.

When the tuning fails, setup prints the engine's own last error line from the log (only lines written during the
tuning), and says the failure again where it is not lost: before --calibrate starts the model, and in the
"All set." summary of an install that tuned.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…etup recommends the big card alone (Niko1221#448)

- engine (layer splits only): when a stage's cache cannot fund the chunk CUDA0 alone would choose, a WARNING
  names it (CUDA index, name, cache slots, the slots the chunk borrows) and points at the helper cache
  (--expert-cache-device1, docs/SECOND_GPU.md).  The chunk choice itself is unchanged: fits() is split into
  fits_one() with the same tests; one GPU never reaches the new log.
- setup: a pair whose second card is under 12 GB beside a first card of 12 GB or more is still offered, but
  the first card alone is recommended (the default with --yes and Enter; offer_together asks "n" by default),
  with a note.  A named --gpus pair is kept.  Equal pairs (2x 8/16/24 GB) are unchanged.
- The automatic drop of the small card from an auto split is not done: stages load their weights before the
  boundary search and the exact prompt-buffer bytes need the sessions made after it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…the totals (Niko1221#457)

The server already read drafts_offered / drafts_accepted from the engine's DONE line but only returned them in a
response's timings (draft_n / draft_n_accepted). Each /metrics request entry now carries both (null when the
engine did not report them) and the totals keep their running sums since the server started, so a dashboard such
as llm-visuals can show the acceptance. Additive: no existing field changes.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…he --family/--model to use (Niko1221#444)

With Unsloth's UD-IQ3_XXS or UD-Q2_K_XL in the folder, setup either said only "has no IQ3_XXS model file"
(--family unsloth --model IQ3_XXS) or took the UD-IQ3_XXS file for the GSQ-RCO IQ3_XXS by the size in its name.
Now:
- a chosen shard whose name is a quantization setup has no size for (UD-IQ3_XXS, UD-Q2_K_XL, a K-quant) stops
  with "<file> is UD-IQ3_XXS, a GGUF Strata cannot run" and what Strata runs: ISTA-DASLab's GSQ-RCO files (and
  Swift 1.5's and the Coder's) and Unsloth's UD-Q4_K_XL only;
- a folder without the chosen file but with other GGUFs lists the ones Strata cannot use and the --family/--model
  of the ones it can (an empty folder keeps check_shards' "missing");
- a size the family does not have names the families that do (--family qwen --model IQ3_XXS), and with
  --gguf-dir also what Strata runs.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…e unpruned sizes for that (Niko1221#438)

README and docs/MODELS.md said only "Weaker outside coding". Niko1221#438 measured Chinese answers wrong or looping on the
Coder where English was fine; both now say plainly that this includes Chinese and other CJK text and point to the
sizes that keep every expert (Q2_0, IQ2_XS, IQ3_S).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…iko1221#461), the low-RAM resident mode on Windows 32 GB PCs (Niko1221#467), fixes Niko1221#460 Niko1221#459 Niko1221#446 Niko1221#447 Niko1221#457 Niko1221#448 Niko1221#444; setup requires it

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
The fill from the GGUF (--stream-experts) read each expert's three slices,
copied the blob and waited for the copy before the next read: ~12,000-18,500
experts with neither the SSD nor PCIe kept busy. Now the slots are admitted
in profile order first (same placement), reads go in file order by up to 8
threads into page-locked batches of 64, and a batch's copies overlap the next
batch's reads. STRATA_FILL_SERIAL=1 keeps the serial fill.

Tested on the B70: cold page cache, Coder fill 23.4 GiB 76.2 s -> 18.8 s;
launch to first token Coder 82 s -> 26 s, IQ2_XS 120 s -> 41 s; outputs
identical to the serial fill.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Rb4SRxFuLpffQAAXBf4HxA
… read (Niko1221#471)

The engine's `strata serve: prompt ...` line now says "= 0 reused + 12288 of 98179 read in ... (cancelled)" with the
rate from the tokens read, and DONE gets a 15th field: the prompt tokens actually read. The server's /metrics history
and totals count reused + read for a cancelled read (prompt_total keeps the whole prompt); an older engine's DONE line
(no such field) is read as before.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
Engine: when the MTP draft head's subset does not fit, it prints what the head needs, the VRAM free, and the smaller
shipped subsets (--draft-vocab cyrillic / en, their MiB from the head's real row size) with how to pick one
(START-HERE.bat / ./setup.sh --draft-vocab en, kept in the model's config). Text only, on the failure path.
Server: a start that ended that way carries the engine's hint (or the same advice for an older engine) in its
"the engine exited before it was ready" error. Setup: a card under 14 GB with the default subset gets a note
recommending --draft-vocab en; nothing is changed, an explicit or saved choice gets no note, and the golden
configs are unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…o1221#475)

In a git clone they run `git pull --ff-only` (a zip copy is told to download the new zip), then `setup.py --update`:
what a plain start does to an install before it starts the model - the Python packages, the ready-made engine when
MIN_ENGINE is newer (a compiled one when its source changed), each model's config upgrades and its draft subset, the
Windows AMD runtime - and nothing else: no question, no model files, no start. Both scripts run from one parsed
block, since the pull can rewrite the running script. Documented in docs/INSTALL.md (Updating) and the README.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…profile-save, Niko1221#477)

`--expert-profile-save P` (--serve) writes the adaptive tier's learning as a profile in tools/make_profile.py's
format, byte for byte (read_expert_profile reads it back): every pair ranked - the experts resident in VRAM now
first, then the routing counted since the start (the decayed usage summed at each adapt step, before its decay),
then the profile the engine started from. On QUIT / stdin EOF and every --expert-profile-save-every minutes
(default 10, 0 = exit only) between requests, through <P>.tmp and a rename. Without the flag nothing is counted or
written: `heat` stays empty and every added loop is over it.

Server: "expert_profile_save" (and "expert_profile_save_every") in the config pass the flags, and the next start
begins from the saved file instead of the config's --expert-profile when its header matches that profile's
layers x experts. tests/core/expert_profile_save_test.cpp (CPU only) checks the order and the bytes.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…, the draft-head hint (Niko1221#474), UPDATE.bat (Niko1221#475), --expert-profile-save (Niko1221#477); setup requires it

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…pt path, grouped on the GPU (opt-in STRATA_PF_FUSED=1)

Strata's own kernels (src/prefill/moe_fused.cu): the layer's input rounded to int8 once per token (a scale per 32
values), the (token, k) pairs grouped by expert on the GPU (counts, offsets, a 64-row tile list - no host sync),
then per batch of up to 128 experts one gate/up launch (mma.sync m16n8k32 s8, the 2-bit codes unpacked in
registers, Q2_0's offset folded into the activation blocks' sums, SwiGLU and H's int8 rounding in the epilogue)
and one down launch into the per-slot rows the existing combine reads.  Experts are read where they are (cache
slot or streamed ring slot, a pointer per expert): no gather.

Used only on the streamed walk (chunks from stream_all_min()) of the canonical Q2_0 layout on sm_80+ CUDA, with
STRATA_PF_FUSED=1; it reuses the MMQ buffers (Xq, H, GU).  Everything else - the default, native/IQ packs, small
chunks, sm_75, HIP - runs the MMQ path unchanged (the old block is only wrapped in the else branch).

tests/cuda/prefill_fused_moe_test (exit 77 below sm_80), RTX 5070: vs a double-precision reference, MMQ rel RMS
1.144e-2 (worst row 4.15e-2), fused 1.144e-2 (4.15e-2); fused vs MMQ 9.0e-5.  One layer at 2048 tokens x top 10
over 512 experts: MMQ path 11.12 ms, fused 3.13 ms.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…e layer's experts) by default

The fused path launches on batches of a layer's streamed experts, so with the 384-slot ring a layer's last batch
waited for slots its own first batch frees.  With STRATA_PF_FUSED=1 (and the canonical Q2_0 layout) the pinned-RAM
ring is 512 slots; without it nothing changes (384 / 96 as before; STRATA_PREFILL_RING still overrides).

RTX 5070, Q2_0 (cfg-q2rel), greedy, 3 alternating pairs, prompt tok/s: 4K 1,275 -> 1,516 (+18.9%), 32K 2,176 ->
2,422 (+11.3%); at 384 slots the fused path gave +4-7% / +3%.  1024 slots: 4K +24-27%, but the 32K chunk falls
from 8192 to 6144 (+6%).  The default path's output is identical to 0.1.35's on both prompts.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
… hold only what the fused kernels need

In a layout whose chunks run the fused experts (STRATA_PF_FUSED=1, the Q2_0 pack, a streamed chunk) GU holds the
grouping tables, H the int8 H rows and Xq the per-token int8 activations, and Hq nothing - instead of MMQ's FP32 GU / H
and per-slot q8_1 rows: ~100 KB a token less in the MoE set, which then no longer sets the shared region's size (the
GDN set does).  A last chunk below stream_all_min() still runs MMQ in the same buffers, so each keeps MMQ's size for
stream_all_min() - 1 tokens.  The ring may grow to 1024 slots with the fused experts (STRATA_PREFILL_RING; the default
stays 512).  Without STRATA_PF_FUSED nothing changes: the same buffers, ring cap (512) and events.

The fused walk now counts the experts it reads from the cache in experts_resident (it stayed 0): every resident expert
of the layer, routed or not - at a streamed chunk's size nearly all are.

RTX 5070, Q2_0 (cfg-q2rel), --prefill auto, 2 alternating pairs, prompt tok/s (borrowed slots):
  4K:   MMQ 1,305 (1621), fused 1,517 (1749), fused + P3 1,512 (1534), + 1024-slot ring 1,605 (2046)
  32K:  MMQ 2,177 (3071), fused 2,453 (3199), fused + P3 2,485 (2641), + 1024-slot ring 2,660 (3153)
  128K (--max-context 131072 --kv-resident 32768): MMQ 2,108 (chunk 8192), fused 2,140 (6144), fused + P3 2,346
        (8192), + 1024-slot ring 2,392 (6144)
A 16K chunk still does not fit the 12 GB card: at 8192 tokens the loan is 2,641 of 3,690 slots, ~2.1K of them per
8K tokens.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…ault (two layers' experts)

With P3's smaller buffers the 1024-slot ring fits beside an 8192-token chunk at 32K (borrowed 3,153 of 3,690 slots,
under the 90% cap).  RTX 5070, Q2_0 (cfg-q2rel), --prefill auto, prompt tok/s at 512 / 1024 slots (2 alternating
pairs): 4K 1,512 / 1,605, 32K 2,485 / 2,660, 128K (KV streaming) 2,346 / 2,392 - there the chunk falls from 8192 to
6144 and is still faster.  Against MMQ (one more pair on this build): 4K 1,299 -> 1,609 (+23.9%), 32K 2,187 -> 2,656
(+21.5%), 128K 2,128 -> 2,454 (+15.3%).  The ring does not change the numbers (the same output as at 512 slots).
Without STRATA_PF_FUSED nothing changes (384 / 96 slots, cap 512).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…y argmax, the same ids and tokens

- qsa_block_topk: calls of up to 16 queries (decode windows) run on a cluster of 8 CTAs per query
  (block_topk_cluster_kernel): keys in shared memory, digit histograms pushed through distributed shared memory,
  one cluster barrier per radix pass, a parallel digit search, cluster-wide offsets for the ordered emit. The
  threshold and the cut at it are the one-CTA kernels' (same tie rule, NaN keys 0). STRATA_QSA_CLUSTER=0: off.
  RTX 5070 per call: 21.9 -> 15.6 us at 32K, 58 -> 18 at 128K, 200 -> 22 at 262K.
- sample_tokens greedy without penalties: a cluster of 8 CTAs per row (sampler_greedy_cluster_kernel), four loads
  in flight per thread, results merged in CTA 0 (lowest index on ties, NaN never taken, 0 when none).
  STRATA_ARGMAX_MULTI=0: off. 39.6 -> 5.9 us per call at 248,320 logits.
- Both launch through cudaLaunchKernelEx with the cluster attribute (captured in the decode graphs) only where
  they run: CUDA, compute capability 9+ (STRATA_EMULATE_CC respected), the kernel's own PTX/SASS at sm_90+ (an
  older build's JIT copy is a trap), room for one cluster - checked once per device. HIP and sm_75/86/89 keep the
  one-CTA kernels.
- decode_cluster_parity (ctest; skips below sm_90): bitwise vs the one-CTA dispatch and the reference kernel over
  434 top-k cases (contexts 7..262,144, every tail weight, 1-16 queries, ties / NaN / +-inf / -0 / denormal / all
  NaN) and 216 argmax cases, plus a CUDA graph capturing both (first calls inside the capture); --bench timings.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
…gate/up IQ2_XXS IQ2_XS IQ2_S IQ3_XXS IQ3_S IQ4_XS, down Q2_0 IQ4_NL; opt-in STRATA_PF_FUSED=1)

src/prefill/moe_fused_iq.cu: the Q2_0 path's design (moe_fused.cu: the grouping on the GPU, a pointer per expert -
cache slot or ring slot, no gather -, SwiGLU and H's int8 rounding in the gate/up epilogue) for the raw GGUF blobs of
the native packs.  The load stage decodes the i-quant blocks to int8 in shared memory (llama.cpp's codebooks and sign
tables, held in shared memory; a 32-value sub-block per thread per 64 values of K, read one stage ahead with 16-bit
loads and two 256-value blocks ahead into L2), with each sub-block's scale (per 16 values for IQ2_XS / IQ2_S, which
multiply at m16n8k16).  The activations are int8 per 32 values in natural order (quantize_act_native); fragments by
ldmatrix; the magic bias 1.5 * 2^23 enters as the mma's C, so a dot becomes a float with one add.  A work item is 256
weight rows x 64 routed rows, or 128 x 128 when the experts have 56-112 rows each (STRATA_PF_FUSED_TILE=64|128).

Wiring (prefill.cpp): a native layer takes these kernels when both its formats are covered, else MMQ (IQ1_M keeps the
FP16 path); the 512-slot ring of the fused path now also for a native pack with such layers.  sm_75, HIP and the
default (no variable) are unchanged: on IQ2_XS, IQ3_XXS and IQ3_S the default output is 0.1.35's (256/256 greedy
tokens, 4K and 32K).

tests/cuda/prefill_fused_iq_test (exit 77 below sm_80), RTX 5070, 256 tokens x 64 experts against a double-precision
reference from ggml's to_float, rel RMS / worst row - MMQ and fused equal to four digits: IQ2_S/Q2_0 1.489e-2 /
2.93e-2 (fused vs MMQ 2.6e-4), IQ2_XXS/Q2_0 1.464e-2 / 2.96e-2 (1.9e-4), IQ2_XS/IQ4_NL 1.465e-2 / 2.41e-2 (3.5e-5),
IQ3_XXS/IQ4_NL 1.458e-2 / 2.73e-2 (1.6e-4), IQ3_S/IQ4_NL 1.470e-2 / 2.65e-2 (6.5e-5), IQ4_XS/Q2_0 1.446e-2 /
2.72e-2 (4.4e-5); both tile shapes.  One layer (512 experts, top 10), ms, MMQ path -> fused at 2048 / 3584 / 8192
tokens: IQ2_S 10.5 -> 5.2, 12.5 -> 9.3, 21.4 -> 17.5; IQ2_XXS 8.8 -> 4.2, 10.7 -> 7.6, 17.9 -> 13.6; IQ3_S 10.6 -> 5.6,
12.3 -> 8.8, 19.8 -> 18.4; IQ3_XXS 10.2 -> 5.1, 11.9 -> 8.3, 19.1 -> 16.5.  MMQ's products alone (no gathers) at
3584 / 8192: IQ2_S 8.9 / 17.9, IQ3_S 8.1 / 15.6: the kernels are about even with MMQ's, the gain is the path around them.
(The test syncs the device after its uploads: a cudaMemcpy from pageable memory on the legacy stream can still be
queued on Windows while a non-blocking stream runs - the grouping then read zeroed ids, every pair on expert 0.
prefill_fused_moe_test's timing part has the same pattern.)

End to end, RTX 5070, speed_135.py's settings, greedy, A (MMQ) / B (STRATA_PF_FUSED=1) alternating, 2 pairs, prompt
tok/s: IQ2_XS 4K 1,228 -> 1,378 (+12%; a cold first A run of 590 left out), 32K 2,107 -> 2,170 (+3.0%); IQ3_XXS 4K
1,001 -> 1,020 (+1.8%), 32K 1,745 -> 1,739 (-0.4%); IQ3_S 4K 927 -> 925 (-0.2%), 32K 1,382 -> 1,362 (-1.4%).  The IQ3
packs' prompts here wait on the host copies of their unpinned experts (IQ3_XXS 4K: 5,062 of 22,573 streamed, ~3.0 s
of 3.4 s), so faster kernels change little.  Each arm repeats itself (256/256; IQ3_XXS 32K B and IQ3_S 32K A split at
162 / 223, the decode's timing); A vs B greedy agreement, identical prefix of 256: IQ2_XS 204 / 88, IQ3_XXS 182 / 89,
IQ3_S 31 / 256.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Rb4SRxFuLpffQAAXBf4HxA
…(STRATA_PF_FUSED=0 off), the native IQ packs' fused kernels opt-in (=1), cluster decode kernels; the fused test waits for its uploads

The ring rule: 1024 slots for the Q2_0 pack's fused experts (P3), 512 for native packs with fused layers.
Quality (teacher-forced vs the FP16 path, Q2_0): fused as close as MMQ at 8K, closer at 32K (phaseA-tests s18-tf).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
device, expert_source, native_head, prefill gemm, prefill.cpp, generate.cpp
merged from dpct of aeb35be and d9ab843 with sycl/tools/merge_upstream.py (the
3-way merge restricted to files upstream changed, dpct kernel-name hashes
canonicalized to the port's). Version 0.1.35.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Rb4SRxFuLpffQAAXBf4HxA
…ls) and their switches

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
The PCIe probe sets the share of the missed experts the GPU reads over
the link (--pcie-frac): the native default 0.55 from 20 GB/s up, less
on a slower link (Niko1221#44). On Windows HIP it timed its copies with events
that do not bracket them there: an RX 6800 read between 3,348 and
25,999 GB/s in 24 engine starts, so every link kept the x16 share. A
standalone copy of the probe on that card: its events measure 0.13 ms
for the 1 GiB, the host clock 43 ms (25.1 GB/s).

On Windows HIP the probe now times the same copies on the host, between
two synchronizes (1 GiB, tens of milliseconds): the same RX 6800 on
PCIe 4.0 x16 reads 27.2 GB/s in every run, which keeps 0.55 there. On
a PCIe 4.0 x8 or 3.0 x16 link the share now shrinks as Niko1221#44 intended.
CUDA and Linux keep the events.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015Ld5YDzuKW1hgMVwwgRZDP
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
…DGET)

On Windows, hipMemGetInfo (ROCclr's PAL backend) reports the card's size
minus this process's own allocations; what the desktop and other
programs hold on the card is not subtracted. On a card that also drives
the desktop the engine counts the ~930 MiB those hold as free, and
--expert-cache auto fills the card past what Windows lets the process
keep in VRAM: WDDM moves part of it out to system RAM. On an RX 6800
(HIP SDK 7.2) with setup's configuration: a 9.83 GiB cache, the card at
16132 of its 16368 MiB, 929 MiB more of the engine in system RAM than
with this change, 30.1-31.0 tok/s decode. On a 0.1.30 build,
--vram-reserve-mib 1500 left the card as full (16037 MiB), since the
reserve is taken from the same figure.

Windows gives every process a video memory budget that does account
for the others (DXGI QueryVideoMemoryInfo). On that card it is 799 MiB
below the card's size while the process is small and about 1.8 GiB
below once it holds 11 GiB; allocations past it still succeed.
cudaMemGetInfo, which the HIP shim maps to hipMemGetInfo, now lowers
hipMemGetInfo's free figure by what the budget withholds (the card's
size minus the budget), on Windows only. What is sized from it then
stays within the budget: --expert-cache auto sizes the cache from it,
and the existing check after the slots are written shrinks it ("only
8 MiB free once the slots are written ... shrinking"): an 8.05 GiB
cache, the card at 15230 MiB, 40.6-41.5 tok/s.
Lowering HIP's own figure, instead of taking the budget minus DXGI's
usage, keeps memory the HIP runtime has freed but still caches counted
as free, as HIP counts it.

dxgi.dll is loaded at run time, so nothing new is linked; the adapter
is found by the device's LUID. Without dxgi.dll, the adapter or a
budget below the card's size, hipMemGetInfo's figure stands. The first
query logs the budget once. STRATA_WDDM_BUDGET=0 turns it off. CUDA
and Linux builds are unchanged.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015Ld5YDzuKW1hgMVwwgRZDP
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
…g forever (Niko1221#481)

A request whose engine prints nothing for engine_silence_s (default 300 s; while a prompt is read, a chunk may take
3x the previous one's time, the first up to its tokens at 50 tok/s more) ends with EngineSilent (an EngineDied): the
engine is killed and the next request starts it again. The STOP drain, under the request FIFO, is no longer an
untimed wait. "engine_silence_s": 0 keeps the old behaviour. Tests: unit (silence, PP chunks, first chunk, STOP
never acknowledged, 0, config) and over HTTP with a fake engine process (non-stream, stream, stop token).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0154bwiad8gY7wRehCXy27pN
Niko1221 and others added 17 commits October 4, 2026 03:53
…ted count opt-in (STRATA_RING_BYTES=1)

Default: 0.1.39's 384/1024-slot ring and bytes_needed count, so the default loan and output stay as they were.
The auto chunk scan (the PR's second commit) is not taken.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
…the better buy

`--prefill auto` walked a fixed list of chunk sizes - 32768, 16384, 8192,
6144, ... - and took the first that fitted, with the ring a fixed 384 slots
taken off the top before the chunk was ever considered.  Both halves of
that were wrong on a rig like this one.

The list is coarse exactly where it matters.  `bytes_needed` is a sum of
(T x positive constant) terms plus a max of such sums, so it rises
monotonically with T, and so does every test the scan applies - which makes
the largest chunk that fits a bisection on the 256-token grid the prompt
path already works on.  Seven probes against the list's ten, at one
`bytes_needed` each.  It matters because this rig affords ~8,700 tokens and
was handed 8192; 8704 is not on the list.

The order was wrong because chunk and ring spend the same borrowed VRAM,
and a ring slot is worth far more than a chunk token.  Measured here (2x
RTX 3060 + 2x RTX 5060, CUDA3 lending at its 90% cap, 120K prompt): 8960
tokens with the 17-slot ring that leaves reads at 963 tok/s, 8192/130 at
1,008, 7168 with the ring full at its 199-slot byte budget at 1,000, 5632/199
at 915.  A ring slot is worth ~0.53 tok/s and a chunk token ~0.05, so the 69
slots between a full ring and 8192's 130 are worth more than the 512 chunk
tokens they cost - and once the ring IS full, a smaller chunk buys nothing.
So: the largest chunk that still leaves the ring full, and only a rig where
no chunk can afford one falls back to the old rule with a kRingMin floor.

The room is counted in BYTES, not slots.  A ring slot is max_blob, but a
cache slot holds its own layer's blob - 2.15 MiB against a 2.54 MiB max_blob
here.  In slots the ring looked 18% cheaper than it is, a chunk whose ring
fitted only after that discount was refused outright, and the scan stopped a
step short.  `bytes_from_slots` is the inverse of the existing
`slots_from_bytes`, and `cache_slots_for` factors the latter out for the
serve path's per-participant version.  Both inverses clamp at k <= 0: the
lend budget is `min(slots - 128, pct * slots / 100)` and goes negative on a
cache under 128 slots, where `slots - k` is off_[slots] - the end of the
prefix sum, so that cache lends 0 bytes rather than reading past its offsets.

Upstream's per-participant `fits`/`fits_one` and the Niko1221#448 diagnostic are kept:
the ring room is taken over the smallest participant, `alone` is the chunk
CUDA0 alone would read in, and the small-card warning is unchanged.

Verified on the rig: the scan picks 7680/199 against the old rule's 8960/17,
1018.8 and 1021.1 tok/s on two cold 120K prompts against 963.1 - +5.9%.
Q8_0 picks 5632/101, its 506 MiB budget over a 5,222,400 B blob.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Code <noreply@anthropic.com>

0.1.39b (Niko1221): behind STRATA_RING_BYTES=1 with the byte-budget ring; the default keeps 0.1.39's chunk list
(plan_lend and the serve scan), its log line gains the ring. The INFO fields (the Monitor commit) are not taken.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
…mbers and quality check

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
's fused_gr carveout on HIP)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Added where a config goes to several GPUs (setup --gpus / a multi-GPU install, start --gpus, "use both" at
start). Single-GPU configs are not touched. Opt-out: setup --no-remote-expert-opt, or "remote_expert_opt": false
in the config (a user key, kept on re-runs). The engine uses it only with a helper cache (--expert-cache-device1..3),
so a layer split runs as before. tools/test_setup_remote_opt.py; the 2x16 GB golden configs gain the flag.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
…S.md with the measured quality

Changes default output on long prompts of native packs against 0.1.39 (expected; gate notes in the S40 report).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
…8, Linux 525); the wheel pins match the 12.9.1 toolkit

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
… keep 0.1.39's ring

- a prompt that fits 0.1.39's auto chunk keeps 0.1.39's ring (Prefill::set_ring_budget's small_max): 4K prompts
  were 1-17% slower with the smaller ring (Coder -15%, IQ3_S -5%, IQ3_XXS -2%; 5 interleaved pairs each);
- ring slots are given up for a bigger chunk only where 0.1.39's rule held the chunk under 6144 (ring_cap_for);
  from 6144 on the ring keeps its 0.1.39 size (the Coder 6144/384 -> 7936/199 was -12% at 32K);
- the unpinned arm's cap stays 96 (the byte budget made it ~49 on IQ3_S);
- the scan sets its own ring budget instead of set_ring_override, so a layer split's 96-slot override (Niko1221#340) is no
  longer clobbered by the scan.
RTX 5070 vs STRATA_RING_BYTES=0: 4K -0.7..+1.1% (bit-identical); 32K IQ3_XXS +18.5% (cache 1500) / +9.4%, Coder
+3.1%, IQ3_S +0.2%.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QJJwUv9g3cD2ztX6KWS8rk
# Conflicts:
#	src/core/expert_source.cpp
#	src/kernels/cuda/iq_kernels.cu
# Conflicts:
#	src/core/verify.cpp
#	src/program/generate.cpp
…l); UD-Q4_K_XL stays experimental

- "experimental" is per model now: MODELS["UD-Q4_K_XL"] keeps it, the unsloth family and UD-IQ4_XS drop it. The
  first menu lists the family without [experimental], with a one-line about (UD-IQ4_XS: a 94 GB download; under
  ~80 GB of RAM part of its experts are read from the SSD). Its size menu lists UD-IQ4_XS first (the default) and
  UD-Q4_K_XL second; an experimental size always sorts last. --model names are unchanged.
- UD-IQ4_XS: no EXPERIMENTAL warning, --check verdict without it. Images are asked (off by default), per model: the
  engine's image path has no restriction for this pack, which uses the original model's image encoder; not yet run
  with images. UD-Q4_K_XL keeps images off.
- MCP: the fallback tables mirror setup's (per-model experimental/vision), sizes in setup's order, per-size
  "experimental" and "images", the vision check per model.
- Docs: README and its six translations, MODELS, UNSLOTH_Q4, AI_SETUP, MCP_SERVER.
- Tests: the menus, the default, --model by name, images, --check, the pack/tokenizer paths; the golden configs
  are unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QJJwUv9g3cD2ztX6KWS8rk
…e-mib 1000 if a request stalls

With the image encoder on the GPU, the 700 MiB reserve can leave ~200 MiB free on a 12 GB card (UD-IQ4_XS
end-to-end check on an RTX 5070). Setup prints a one-line recommendation; the written config is unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QJJwUv9g3cD2ztX6KWS8rk
…swaps / --adapt-decay)

A fifth step after the worker count: the engine's default tier against two that swap more
and remember longer (every 1 / 80 / 0.97, every 1 / 160 / 0.97), a restart each, kept only
above MIN_GAIN. On a Xeon E5-2673 v3 (DDR3) with an RTX 4060 Ti on PCIe 3.0 x8, Q2_0:
160 swaps every window +7.9% over the default tier with Niko1221#764 (Niko1221#906).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
With 128-token answers the tier had no time to follow the text: on the Xeon E5-2673 v3 the
candidates measured 56.9 / 56.2 / 57.3 tok/s and the default stayed; with 512 tokens 54.3 /
60.1 / 60.6 and every 1 / 160 / 0.97 was kept (+11.6%). The whole calibration took 655 s.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@star1872

star1872 commented Oct 5, 2026

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Ran tools/calibrate.py end to end on the PC from #906 (Xeon E5-2673 v3, DDR3, RTX 4060 Ti on PCIe 3.0 x8, Q2_0,
setup's default config; engine 0.1.39 + #706 + #764), and the first version of this PR did not pick the tier there:

Tier candidate 128-token answers (first version) 512-token answers (11794f4)
engine default 56.9 tok/s 54.3 (54.98, 53.70)
every 1 / 80 / 0.97 56.2 60.1 (61.36, 58.75)
every 1 / 160 / 0.97 57.3 (+0.7%, default kept) 60.6 (58.73, 62.39), kept: +11.6%

With the calibration's 128-token answers the tier has too few windows to follow the text (the same reason the short
translation prompt gained least in #906), so 11794f4 makes this step generate 512 tokens per prompt (TIER_MAX_NEW).
The other steps keep 128 and chose the same as before (PCIe share 0.17, spec-min-p 0.5, 11 workers). The whole
calibration took 655 s on this PC.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

@blange48

blange48 commented Oct 5, 2026

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A complement to this PR, since it touches the same measure(). I'm posting it as a patch rather than a competing PR. calibrate.py measures one request at a time, which is the solo path. With "parallel": N (--batch), two more settings decide how fast the slots run together, and only a load of several requests at once shows them.

Patch: https://github.com/blange48/Strata/commit/fb1b649.patch (one commit on 6f32ec0, git am applies it, +211 lines with tests)

  • Step 5, only when the engine has batch slots: the total tok/s of every slot decoding at once, measured on:

    • the config as it runs;
    • the config without --batch-groups (with a layer split);
    • the config with half the --kv-resident cells (room for more experts in VRAM).

    Each candidate is a restart, measured in two interleaved rounds, and kept only above MIN_GAIN, like the other steps.

  • apply() writes those two settings as calibrated (None removes the flag). They have no product default to go back to.

  • Tests: tools/test_calibrate.py gets a stand-in engine with batch slots. It checks that the config is kept when flat, that a smaller resident K/V and dropping the groups are found when they're faster, and that there's no step 5 without slots. 18 tests, stable over repeated runs.

Measured with our production config: 4 x RTX 5080 (PCIe Gen3 x16), i9-10920X, 128 GB DDR4-3200, IQ3_S, 262K context, --batch 8 --batch-groups 4, layer split 12,24,36. The full run took 17 min.

Step Result
PCIe share sweep (0 / 0.2 / 0.35 / 0.38 auto / 0.55 / 0.75) 143.5 / 144.0 / 143.7 / 142.4 / 142.2 / 145.8 tok/s
draft floor (0.3 / 0.5 / 0.7) 139.9 / 146.9 / 147.9
confirm, default vs 0.75/0.7 143.6 vs 148.0 (+3.0 %, kept)
workers (11 / 7 / 6) 145.7 / 145.6 / 145.2 (default kept)
step 5, 8 at once: as configured 264.4
without --batch-groups 144.6 (-45 %)
--kv-resident 16384 281.0 (+6.3 %, kept)

Two observations that may matter for your PR too:

  • The +3.0 % on the PCIe share is at the edge of MIN_GAIN, and our HTTP measurements disagree with it. Those use French prompts at T=0.7, 300 tokens: --pcie-frac 0.6 was 4.5 % slower for one request, and 1.0 was 17 % slower. With 128-token greedy answers to three English prompts, a few percent seems to be within the prompt-to-prompt spread. A fourth prompt, or a longer MAX_NEW, might be worth it.
  • Step 5 doesn't cover very long contexts. The prompts are short, so a smaller --kv-resident costs nothing in the measurement. A conversation far beyond the resident cells streams more K/V from the host, and that cost isn't measured. Maybe worth a note in setup's message when step 5 lowers it.

Happy to rebase it onto this PR if you'd rather have them land together.

@Niko1221

Niko1221 commented Oct 6, 2026

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Heads-up: today we cleaned up this repository's commit history, and GitHub closed this PR automatically when main was force-pushed (that is the "base branch was force-pushed" event above). It is not a rejection.

GitHub cannot reopen it, because its branch is built on the old history. If you want to keep it going: start a new branch from the new main, cherry-pick your own commits onto it (git fetch upstream && git switch -c my-fix upstream/main && git cherry-pick <your commits>), and open a new PR. Or simply leave it: when we take your change for a release we port it onto the new main ourselves and keep you as its author.

Sorry for the noise, and thank you for the contribution.

Niko1221 pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Oct 7, 2026
…swaps / --adapt-decay), with 512-token answers (#907)

A new step 5 tries two tier settings (every window, 80 or 160 swaps, decay 0.97) against the engine's own, after the worker count, one restart each; a setting is kept only when it beats the default by 3%. The tier follows a text over some windows, so this step measures 512-token answers. The author measured +7.9% on a DDR3 Xeon with an RTX 4060 Ti. Applied by a 3-way merge onto the 0.1.40 calibrate.py; the check that it keeps the engine default on a fast-RAM PC is still to run on a GPU.
@Niko1221

Niko1221 commented Oct 7, 2026

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Thank you, 1872183316. The expert-tier step in calibrate is in 0.1.40.2 with your authorship kept. Already closed with the history rewrite.

0xrjman pushed a commit to 0xrjman/Strata that referenced this pull request Oct 7, 2026
…swaps / --adapt-decay), with 512-token answers (Niko1221#907)

A new step 5 tries two tier settings (every window, 80 or 160 swaps, decay 0.97) against the engine's own, after the worker count, one restart each; a setting is kept only when it beats the default by 3%. The tier follows a text over some windows, so this step measures 512-token answers. The author measured +7.9% on a DDR3 Xeon with an RTX 4060 Ti. Applied by a 3-way merge onto the 0.1.40 calibrate.py; the check that it keeps the engine default on a fast-RAM PC is still to run on a GPU.
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