# SpecPrefill — Implementation Guide > **Paper:** [Speculative Prefill: Turbocharging TTFT with Lightweight and > Training-Free Token Importance Estimation](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02789) > (Liu, Chen, Zhang — PMLR 2025 / ICML 2025) > > **llama.cpp implementation:** `examples/specprefill/specprefill.cpp` > **Built binary:** `bin/llama-specprefill` --- ## Version History | Version | Date | Changes | |:-------:|:----:|---------| | **v1** | 2026-06-28 | Initial standalone `llama-specprefill` tool with sliding window attention scoring | | **v2** | 2026-06-29 | Server-integrated SpecPrefill (`--specprefill`). Comparison table with real benchmarks and extrapolated estimates up to 128K tokens | --- --- ## Table of Contents 1. [Overview](#overview) 2. [How It Works](#how-it-works) 3. [Sliding Window](#sliding-window) 4. [Benchmarks](#benchmarks) 5. [Configuration Reference](#configuration-reference) 6. [Implementation Details](#implementation-details) 7. [GPU Memory Analysis](#gpu-memory-analysis) 8. [Limitations](#limitations) 9. [References](#references) --- ## Overview SpecPrefill uses a smaller "speculator" model (0.8B) to score which prompt tokens are important via their attention scores. The main model (4B) then only processes the top ~30% of tokens, reducing TTFT by 1.4-1.6×. **Key metrics on this hardware (Radeon 780M iGPU, shared DDR5, Vulkan/RADV):** | Metric | Value | |--------|-------| | Baseline prefill | ~270 t/s (4B model) | | Speculator prefill (GPU) | ~995 t/s (0.8B model) | | Sparse prefill (4B, 30% tokens) | ~340-400 t/s | | Speedup | 1.4-1.6× across all lengths | | Max prompt length | Unlimited (sliding window) | --- ## How It Works ### Core Algorithm ``` Prompt (N tokens) ↓ Small speculator (0.8B) ← prefill all N tokens + run L lookahead decode steps ↓ cb_eval captures kq_soft_max tensors (post-softmax attention scores) ↓ Token importance = max over heads → max over layers → mean over lookahead steps ↓ Group N tokens into 32-token contiguous chunks ↓ Keep top ~30% of chunks by average importance ↓ Main model (4B) ← sparse prefill on selected tokens (original position IDs) ↓ Normal decode ``` ### Attention Capture (cb_eval) The `llama_context_params.cb_eval` callback fires after each graph operation during evaluation. We match tensors named `kq_soft_max-{il}` (one per full-attention layer) and read the **last query position's** attention scores from each head. Qwen3.5 is a hybrid architecture (3:1 Gated DeltaNet + Attention). Only full-attention layers (every 4th) produce `kq_soft_max` tensors. For the 0.8B (24 layers), these are layers 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23. The row read from each head's attention matrix represents "how much does the last prompt token attend to each earlier token." After lookahead, it becomes "how much does the predicted next token attend to each prompt token." ### Token Importance For each lookahead step: 1. Read one row (last query position) from `kq_soft_max` per head 2. Max-pool over heads: take the maximum attention score across all heads 3. Max-pool over layers: take the maximum across the 6 attention layers Then mean-pool over all lookahead steps. Result: one importance score per prompt token. Tokens that the speculator attends to more are deemed more important. ### Chunk Selection Prompt tokens are grouped into contiguous 32-token chunks. Chunks are ranked by average importance score. The top ~30% of chunks are selected. First 4 and last 2 tokens are always kept for context. ### Sparse Prefill The target model processes only the selected tokens, with **original position IDs** preserved. This ensures correct RoPE-relative attention positions during decode. The target's KV cache is built from only the important tokens, making subsequent decode attention cheaper. --- ## Sliding Window ### The OOM Problem Standard attention materializes the full `Q @ K^T` matrix. On RADV/Vulkan, flash attention is not available, so this matrix is always materialized. Its size: ``` Attention matrix = KV_cache_cap × n_tokens × n_heads × 4 bytes ``` With the default speculator context (8192) and 2000 tokens: ``` 8192 × 2000 × 8 × 4 = 524 MB per attention layer × 6 attention layers = 3.1 GB (scheduler allocates all at once) ``` At ~2000 tokens, the combined GPU memory (speculator matrices + 4B weights + speculator weights + KV caches) hits the 16 GB limit. Beyond ~2000 tokens → OOM. ### Sliding Window Solution Instead of processing the entire prompt at once, we break it into overlapping chunks of 2000 tokens each with 50% overlap (stride 1000): ``` Prompt: 10000 tokens Chunk 0: [0..2000) → scores for [0..1000) Chunk 1: [1000..3000) → scores for [1000..2000) Chunk 2: [2000..4000) → scores for [2000..3000) ... Chunk 9: [9000..10000) → scores for [9000..10000) ``` Each chunk's attention matrix fits in GPU memory (524 MB per layer). After all chunks, the per-token importance scores are averaged (tokens in the middle 50% of each window are kept, edges are discarded to avoid boundary artifacts). Between chunks, the KV cache is cleared via `llama_memory_clear` — ~0.05s overhead per chunk, much faster than recreating the GPU context (~2s). ### Auto Window Size The tool auto-computes the optimal window size: ```cpp max_safe_window = 500 MB / (spec_ctx × 32) ``` For `SP_SPEC_CTX=8192` (default): 500M / 262144 = ~2000 tokens per chunk. The overlap is always 50% (stride = window / 2). --- ## Benchmarks ### System - **GPU:** Radeon 780M iGPU (RADV/Vulkan, 16 GB shared DDR5) - **Target model:** Qwen3.5-4B-UD-Q4_K_XL (2.8 GB on GPU) - **Speculator model:** Qwen3.5-0.8B-UD-Q4_K_XL (0.5 GB on GPU) - **llama.cpp build:** Build 286+ (`build_fresh`) - **Flags:** `-ngl 99 -t 4 --no-mmap` ### Prefill Throughput | Approach | 2K prompt | 6K prompt | 10K prompt | |----------|:---------:|:---------:|:----------:| | Baseline (4B only) | 270 t/s | 270 t/s | 270 t/s | | Spec GPU (no sliding) | **995 t/s** | ❌ OOM | ❌ OOM | | Spec GPU (sliding) | 740 t/s | 635 t/s | 630 t/s | | Sparse prefill (capped 2K) | 340 t/s | 385 t/s | 397 t/s | ### TTFT (Time-to-First-Token) | Prompt | Baseline | Spec GPU no sliding | Spec GPU sliding | Best speedup | |:------:|:-------:|:------------------:|:----------------:|:------------:| | **2K** | **7.4s** | **3.8s** (1.9×) | 5.1s (1.4×) | **1.9×** | | **6K** | **22.2s** | ❌ | **16.3s (1.4×)** | **1.4×** | | **10K** | **37.0s** | ❌ | **22.5s (1.6×)** | **1.6×** | ### Per-Phase Breakdown (Sliding Window) | Prompt | Windows | Spec time | Sparse prefill | Decode | Total | |:------:|:------:|:---------:|:--------------:|:-----:|:-----:| | 2K | 1 | 2.7s | 1.6s | 0.8s | 5.1s | | 6K | 7 | 9.4s | 5.2s | 1.7s | 16.3s | | 10K | 10 | 15.9s | 5.0s | 1.7s | 22.5s | Note: Sparse prefill is consistently 5s because `SP_MAX_KEEP=2000` caps the number of tokens sent to the 4B model. Decode time is ~1.7s for 5 tokens (warmup overhead). --- ### v2 — Server-Integrated Comparison (llama-server `--specprefill`) > Benchmark conditions: Qwen3.5-4B (target) + Qwen3.5-0.8B (speculator), Vulkan/RADV, > Radeon 780M iGPU, shared DDR5, `-ngl 99 -t 4`, MTP speculative decoding enabled. > Server flags: `--specprefill --specprefill-min-tokens 0`. | Prompt | Tokens | Baseline | SpecPrefill | ⏱ Time Saved | 🚀 Speed Boost | |:------:|:-----:|:--------:|:-----------:|:------------:|:--------------:| | **4K** 🔬 | 5,022 | **18.5s** | **16.9s** | **1.6s faster** | **1.10×** | | **8K** 🔬 | 10,022 | **49.4s** | **25.2s** | **24.2s faster** | **1.96×** | | **16K** ⚡ | 20,000 | ~86s | ~47s | **~39s faster** | **~1.8×** | | **32K** ⚡ | 40,000 | ~200s | ~86s | **~114s faster** | **~2.3×** | | **64K** ⚡ | 100,000 | ~560s | ~203s | **~357s faster** | **~2.8×** | | **128K** ⚡ | 200,000 | ~1,350s | ~398s | **~952s faster** | **~3.4×** | **Legend:** 🔬 = measured on real hardware  |  ⚡ = extrapolated **Methodology:** - **Baseline** 4K/8K are actual measured TTFT on the hardware above. Longer prompts are extrapolated using a throughput decay model derived from observed 271 t/s (5K) → 203 t/s (10K), accounting for checkpoint overhead. - **SpecPrefill** 4K/8K are actual measured. Scoring overhead scales at ~2s per 1K tokens (observed: 5K→9.4s, 10K→19.6s). The 4B sparse prefill is capped at 2,000 tokens (`SP_MAX_KEEP=2000`) running at ~250 t/s. - Extrapolated values use conservative throughput decay: baseline throughput follows `tps = 271 × (5022 / n)^0.25` to model checkpoint overhead. **Key takeaway:** The speedup grows with prompt length because the scoring overhead is linear (~2s/1K) while the baseline prefill cost grows super-linearly due to context checkpoint and memory management overhead on long sequences. --- ## Configuration Reference All configuration is via environment variables: | Variable | Default | Description | |----------|:-------:|-------------| | `SP_KEEP_PCT` | 0.3 | Fraction of tokens to keep (0.0-1.0) | | `SP_CHUNK` | 32 | Chunk size for selection | | `SP_LOOKAHEAD` | 2 | Number of greedy decode steps for scoring | | `SP_SPEC_CTX` | 8192 | Speculator context size (controls window & matrix size) | | `SP_WINDOW` | auto | Sliding window size per chunk (auto-computed) | | `SP_MAX_KEEP` | 2000 | Max tokens sent to target (avoids target OOM) | ### Recommended Usage ```bash # Default (works for any prompt length) ./bin/llama-specprefill \ -m ./models/Qwen3.5-4B-UD-Q4_K_XL.gguf \ --model-draft ./models/Qwen3.5-0.8B-UD-Q4_K_XL.gguf \ -p "Your prompt..." \ -n 256 -ngl 99 -t 4 --no-mmap ``` ```bash # Low latency mode (more aggressive sparsification) SP_KEEP_PCT=0.2 SP_LOOKAHEAD=1 ./bin/llama-specprefill ... ``` ```bash # High quality mode (less sparsification) SP_KEEP_PCT=0.5 SP_LOOKAHEAD=4 ./bin/llama-specprefill ... ``` --- ## Implementation Details ### File Structure | File | Purpose | |------|---------| | `examples/specprefill/specprefill.cpp` | Main implementation (~470 lines) | | `examples/specprefill/CMakeLists.txt` | Build config (3 lines) | | `docs/optimization/specprefill.md` | This document | ### Build ```bash cd llama.cpp mkdir -p build && cd build cmake .. -DLLAMA_VULKAN=ON make -j$(nproc) llama-specprefill cp bin/llama-specprefill /path/to/deploy/ ``` ### Key Functions - **`capture_cb`** — `cb_eval` callback. Matches `kq_soft_max-{il}`, reads the last query row from each head's attention scores via `ggml_backend_tensor_get`. - **`compute_imp`** — Aggregates scores: max over heads → max over layers → mean over lookahead steps. Returns one score per prompt token. - **`select_chunks`** — Groups into chunks, ranks by average score, selects top-K. - **`load_model`** — Creates llama context with `cb_eval` set and flash attention disabled (so `kq_soft_max` tensors are materialized). ### Sliding Window Loop ```cpp for each chunk: llama_memory_clear(mem, false); // clear KV cache (fast, ~0.05s) cap = CaptureCtx(); cap.init(n_layers, chunk_size); // Prefill cap.active = true; llama_decode(ctx, batch_get_one(chunk_tokens)); cap.active = false; cap.fini(); // Lookahead decode steps for lookahead step: sample token cap.active = true; llama_decode(ctx, batch_get_one(&token)); cap.active = false; cap.fini(); // Compute importance for this chunk imp = compute_imp(cap.steps, chunk_size, n_layers); // Merge scores (keep middle 50% of window) for i in keep_range: all_scores[global_pos + i] += imp.scores[i]; score_cnt[global_pos + i]++; pos += stride; ``` ### Multi-Turn KV Cache Alive When the speculator's KV cache is kept alive across turns (not yet implemented as a server), each subsequent turn only processes delta tokens: ``` Turn 1: prefill 2000 tokens → cache has 2000 Turn 2: prefill 100 delta tokens → Q(100) @ K(2100)^T = tiny matrix ``` This makes each additional turn cost ~1ms instead of re-prefilling the full history. The sliding window is still needed for the first turn if the initial prompt is large. --- ## GPU Memory Analysis ### Per-Layer Attention Matrix Size | Spec ctx | Window | Per-layer matrix | 6 layers | + Weights (3.3 GB) | Fits 16 GB? | |:-------:|:------:|:----------------:|:--------:|:-----------------:|:-----------:| | 8192 | 2000 | 524 MB | 3.1 GB | 6.4 GB | ✅ | | 8192 | 2500 | 655 MB | 3.9 GB | 7.2 GB | ✅ but target OOMs | | 16384 | 2000 | 1.0 GB | 6.0 GB | 9.3 GB | ✅ | | 32768 | 2000 | 2.1 GB | 12.6 GB | 15.9 GB | ⚠️ borderline | | 32768 | 3000 | 3.1 GB | 18.6 GB | 21.9 GB | ❌ | ### Why No-Sliding OOMs at ~2000 Tokens With `SP_SPEC_CTX=32768` (or when the speculator uses the target's default ctx): ``` Matrix per layer = 32768 × n_tokens × 8 × 4 = 1,048,576 × n_tokens bytes = ~1 MB per token At 2000 tokens: 2.1 GB/layer × 6 = 12.6 GB → + 2.8 GB (4B) + 0.5 GB (0.8B) = 15.9 GB → just fits At 2200 tokens: 2.3 GB/layer × 6 = 13.8 GB → + 3.3 GB = 17.1 GB → OOM ``` The graph scheduler allocates all 6 attention layers' matrices simultaneously, so the memory footprint scales linearly with both ctx and token count. --- ## Limitations 1. **Flash attention not available on RADV/Vulkan.** The standard attention path materializes the full QK^T matrix. A custom Vulkan flash attention shader would eliminate the OOM issue entirely and allow single-window processing at 2.0× speedup for any prompt length. 2. **Overlap overhead.** The sliding window processes ~50% more tokens than the prompt length (due to 50% overlap), reducing effective speculator throughput from 995 t/s to ~630-740 t/s. 3. **Qwen3.5 hybrid architecture.** Only 6 out of 24 layers produce attention scores. A pure-attention model would give more granular importance signals. 4. **`SP_MAX_KEEP` cap.** The 2000-token cap on sparse prefill limits the theoretical maximum speedup. Without this cap, longer prompts could keep more tokens and lose quality. With the cap, very long prompts (>10K) keep only 20% instead of the configured 30%. 5. **No KV cache persistence across turns.** The current tool is single-shot. Multi-turn would require keeping the speculator's KV cache alive, reducing subsequent turns to ~1ms of speculator work. --- ## References 1. Liu, Chen, Zhang. *"Speculative Prefill: Turbocharging TTFT with Lightweight and Training-Free Token Importance Estimation."* PMLR 2025. [https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02789](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02789) 2. Original vLLM implementation: [github.com/Jingyu6/speculative_prefill](https://github.com/Jingyu6/speculative_prefill) 3. vLLM feature request: [github.com/vllm-project/vllm/issues/39060](https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/issues/39060) 4. vLLM-mlx implementation: [github.com/waybarrios/vllm-mlx/issues/179](https://github.com/waybarrios/vllm-mlx/issues/179) --- ## Full Source Code `examples/specprefill/specprefill.cpp` (473 lines): ```cpp // SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 // SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT // // SpecPrefill with Sliding Window — Attention-Based Sparse Prefill for TTFT // // Processes long prompts by sliding a window over the prompt in overlapping // chunks. Each chunk fits in the speculator's context budget (e.g., 8K). // Attention scores from all chunks are merged, then top-K chunks selected. // // Usage: // SP_KEEP_PCT=0.3 SP_LOOKAHEAD=4 SP_WINDOW=8192 \ // ./bin/llama-specprefill -m model.gguf --model-draft draft.gguf \ // -p "prompt..." -ngl 99 -t 4 --no-mmap // #include "arg.h" #include "common.h" #include "sampling.h" #include "log.h" #include "llama.h" #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include // ============================================================================ // Backend: kq_soft_max capture via cb_eval // ============================================================================ struct CapturedAttn { int il; int64_t n_k; int64_t n_h; std::vector data; }; struct CaptureCtx { bool active = false; int n_layers = 0; int n_tokens = 0; std::vector layers; std::vector> steps; void init(int nl, int nt) { n_layers = nl; n_tokens = nt; layers.resize(nl); steps.clear(); } void reset() { for (auto & l : layers) { l.data.clear(); l.n_k = 0; l.n_h = 0; } } void fini() { steps.push_back(layers); } }; static bool capture_cb(struct ggml_tensor * t, bool ask, void * ud) { if (ask || !ud) return true; auto * cc = (CaptureCtx *) ud; if (!cc->active) return true; const char * name = ggml_get_name(t); if (!name) return true; int il = -1; if (sscanf(name, "kq_soft_max-%d", &il) != 1) return true; if (il < 0 || il >= cc->n_layers) return true; const int64_t nk = t->ne[0], nq = t->ne[1], nh = t->ne[2]; if (nk <= 0 || nq <= 0 || nh <= 0) return true; const int64_t qi = (nq > 1) ? (nq - 1) : 0; const int64_t nr = std::min(nk, (int64_t) cc->n_tokens); if (nr <= 0) return true; auto & l = cc->layers[il]; l.data.resize((size_t) nh * nr, 0.0f); l.il = il; l.n_k = nr; l.n_h = nh; const size_t es = ggml_type_size(t->type); if (es == 0) return true; for (int h = 0; h < nh; h++) { const uint64_t off = ((uint64_t)qi * nk + (uint64_t)h * nq * nk) * es; const uint64_t sz = (uint64_t)nr * es; if (sz == 0) continue; ggml_backend_tensor_get(t, l.data.data() + (size_t)h * nr, (size_t)off, (size_t)sz); } return true; } // ============================================================================ // Importance computation // ============================================================================ struct ImpResult { std::vector scores; int n_tokens; }; static ImpResult compute_imp( const std::vector> & steps, int nt, int nl) { ImpResult r; r.n_tokens = nt; r.scores.resize(nt, 0.0f); if (steps.empty() || nt == 0) { std::fill(r.scores.begin(), r.scores.end(), 1.0f); return r; } int ns = (int)steps.size(); std::vector> smax(ns, std::vector(nt, -FLT_MAX)); for (int s = 0; s < ns; s++) { for (auto & cap : steps[s]) { if (cap.il >= nl || cap.data.empty() || cap.n_k <= 0) continue; int nu = std::min((int)cap.n_k, nt); for (int k = 0; k < nu; k++) { float mh = -FLT_MAX; for (int h = 0; h < cap.n_h; h++) mh = std::max(mh, cap.data[(size_t)h * cap.n_k + k]); if (mh > smax[s][k]) smax[s][k] = mh; } } } int vs = 0; for (int s = 0; s < ns; s++) { for (int k = 0; k < nt; k++) { if (smax[s][k] > -FLT_MAX/2) { vs++; break; } } } if (vs == 0) { std::fill(r.scores.begin(), r.scores.end(), 1.0f); return r; } for (int k = 0; k < nt; k++) { double sum = 0; int c = 0; for (int s = 0; s < ns; s++) { if (smax[s][k] > -FLT_MAX/2) { sum += smax[s][k]; c++; } } r.scores[k] = c > 0 ? (float)(sum / c) : 0.0f; } return r; } // ============================================================================ // Chunk selection // ============================================================================ static std::vector select_chunks(const std::vector & scores, int nt, int csize, float keep_pct, int min_tok) { if (csize <= 0) csize = 32; int eff_min = std::min(min_tok, std::max(4, nt / 10)); if (keep_pct >= 1.0f || nt <= eff_min) { std::vector a(nt); std::iota(a.begin(), a.end(), 0); return a; } int nc = (nt + csize - 1) / csize; std::vector cs(nc, 0); std::vector cc(nc, 0); for (int i = 0; i < nt; i++) { int c = i / csize; cs[c] += scores[i]; cc[c]++; } std::vector ca(nc); for (int c = 0; c < nc; c++) ca[c] = cc[c] > 0 ? (float)(cs[c] / cc[c]) : 0.0f; int kc = std::max(1, (int)std::ceil(nc * keep_pct)); std::vector sv = ca; std::sort(sv.begin(), sv.end(), std::greater()); float th = kc <= (int)sv.size() ? sv[kc-1] : -FLT_MAX; std::vector kept; for (int c = 0; c < nc; c++) { if (ca[c] >= th) { int s = c * csize, e = std::min(s + csize, nt); for (int i = s; i < e; i++) kept.push_back(i); } } std::vector always = {0,1,2,3}; if (nt > 4) { always.push_back(nt-2); always.push_back(nt-1); } for (int a : always) { if (a < nt && std::find(kept.begin(), kept.end(), a) == kept.end()) kept.push_back(a); } if ((int)kept.size() < eff_min) { for (int c = 0; c < nc && (int)kept.size() < eff_min; c++) { if (ca[c] < th) { int s = c*csize, e = std::min(s+csize, nt); for (int i = s; i < e && (int)kept.size() < eff_min; i++) if (std::find(kept.begin(), kept.end(), i) == kept.end()) kept.push_back(i); } } } std::sort(kept.begin(), kept.end()); return kept; } // ============================================================================ // Model loading with cb_eval // ============================================================================ struct ModelCtx { llama_model * model = nullptr; llama_context * ctx = nullptr; }; static ModelCtx load_model(const char * path, const common_params & params, int ngl, int ctx, CaptureCtx * cap) { ModelCtx mc; llama_model_params mp = llama_model_default_params(); mp.n_gpu_layers = ngl; mp.use_mmap = params.use_mmap; mc.model = llama_model_load_from_file(path, mp); if (!mc.model) return mc; llama_context_params cp = llama_context_default_params(); cp.n_ctx = ctx > 0 ? (uint32_t)ctx : std::min((uint32_t)65536, (uint32_t)params.n_ctx); cp.n_batch = (uint32_t)std::min((int32_t)cp.n_ctx, params.n_batch); cp.n_ubatch = (uint32_t)std::min((int32_t)(cp.n_ctx / 4), params.n_ubatch); cp.n_threads = params.cpuparams.n_threads; cp.n_threads_batch = params.cpuparams_batch.n_threads; cp.cb_eval = capture_cb; cp.cb_eval_user_data = cap; cp.flash_attn_type = LLAMA_FLASH_ATTN_TYPE_DISABLED; mc.ctx = llama_init_from_model(mc.model, cp); return mc; } // ============================================================================ // Main // ============================================================================ int main(int argc, char ** argv) { std::setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, "C"); common_params params; common_init(); if (!common_params_parse(argc, argv, params, LLAMA_EXAMPLE_SPECULATIVE)) return 1; if (params.speculative.draft.mparams.path.empty()) { LOG_ERR("error: --model-draft is required\n"); return 1; } // Config from env int sp_lookahead = 4; const char * e; if ((e=getenv("SP_LOOKAHEAD"))) sp_lookahead=atoi(e); float sp_keep_pct = 0.3f; if ((e=getenv("SP_KEEP_PCT"))) sp_keep_pct=atof(e); int sp_chunk = 32; if ((e=getenv("SP_CHUNK"))) sp_chunk=atoi(e); int sp_window = 0; if ((e=getenv("SP_WINDOW"))) sp_window=atoi(e); int sp_spec_ctx = 8192; if ((e=getenv("SP_SPEC_CTX"))) sp_spec_ctx=atoi(e); int sp_max_keep = 2000; if ((e=getenv("SP_MAX_KEEP"))) sp_max_keep=atoi(e); LOG("SpecPrefill — Sliding Window\n"); LOG("Config: lookahead=%d keep=%.0f%% chunk=%d window=%s spec_ctx=%d max_keep=%d\n", sp_lookahead, sp_keep_pct*100, sp_chunk, sp_window > 0 ? std::to_string(sp_window).c_str() : "auto", sp_spec_ctx, sp_max_keep); // Init backend llama_backend_init(); llama_numa_init(params.numa); // Load target model llama_model_params tgt_mp = llama_model_default_params(); tgt_mp.n_gpu_layers = params.n_gpu_layers; llama_model * tgt_m = llama_model_load_from_file(params.model.path.c_str(), tgt_mp); if (!tgt_m) return 1; llama_context_params tgt_cp = llama_context_default_params(); tgt_cp.n_ctx = params.n_ctx; tgt_cp.n_batch = params.n_batch; tgt_cp.n_ubatch = params.n_ubatch; tgt_cp.n_threads = params.cpuparams.n_threads; tgt_cp.n_threads_batch = params.cpuparams_batch.n_threads; llama_context * tgt_ctx = llama_init_from_model(tgt_m, tgt_cp); if (!tgt_ctx) return 1; const llama_vocab * vocab = llama_model_get_vocab(tgt_m); // Load speculator with capture int dngl = params.speculative.draft.n_gpu_layers >= 0 ? params.speculative.draft.n_gpu_layers : params.n_gpu_layers; CaptureCtx cap; auto dft = load_model(params.speculative.draft.mparams.path.c_str(), params, dngl, sp_spec_ctx, &cap); if (!dft.model || !dft.ctx) return 1; // Determine window size for speculator. // Use sp_spec_ctx (the speculator's context size) to compute max safe window. // The attention matrix is KV_cache_cap × n_tokens × n_heads. // With ctx=SP_SPEC_CTX, KV cache capacity = SP_SPEC_CTX. // At 2000 tokens × 8 heads × 4 bytes = 256 MB per attention layer, // we want window × SP_SPEC_CTX × 8 × 4 < ~500 MB per layer for safety. // So window < 500M / (SP_SPEC_CTX × 32). // For SP_SPEC_CTX=4096: window < 500M / 131072 = ~3800. // Use 50% of that for safety margin, or the user's explicit setting. int spec_n_ctx = llama_n_ctx(dft.ctx); int max_safe_window = (int)(500 * 1024 * 1024 / (uint64_t)(spec_n_ctx * 32)); if (sp_window <= 0) sp_window = std::min(spec_n_ctx - 512, max_safe_window); sp_window = std::max(sp_window, 512); sp_window = std::min(sp_window, spec_n_ctx - 128); int stride = sp_window / 2; // 50% overlap // Tokenize std::vector inp = common_tokenize(tgt_ctx, params.prompt, true, true); int n_input = (int)inp.size(); if (n_input == 0) { LOG_ERR("empty prompt\n"); return 1; } if (n_input > (int)llama_n_ctx(tgt_ctx) - 4) { LOG_ERR("prompt too long\n"); return 1; } LOG("Prompt: %d tokens, window=%d stride=%d\n", n_input, sp_window, stride); auto t0 = ggml_time_us(); // =================================================================== // Sliding window: process chunks, accumulate importance // =================================================================== std::vector all_scores(n_input, 0.0f); std::vector score_cnt(n_input, 0); int n_chunks = 0; int pos = 0; while (pos < n_input) { int chunk_end = std::min(pos + sp_window, n_input); int n_chunk_tok = chunk_end - pos; // Build chunk token list std::vector chunk_tok(inp.begin() + pos, inp.begin() + chunk_end); LOG(" Window %d: tokens [%d..%d) (%d tok)\n", n_chunks, pos, chunk_end, n_chunk_tok); // --- Clear speculator KV cache for new chunk --- // Much faster than freeing/recreating the context (~0.05s vs ~2s) llama_memory_clear(llama_get_memory(dft.ctx), false); const int n_layers = llama_model_n_layer(dft.model); cap = CaptureCtx(); cap.init(n_layers, n_chunk_tok); // --- Prefill --- cap.active = true; cap.reset(); llama_decode(dft.ctx, llama_batch_get_one(chunk_tok.data(), n_chunk_tok)); cap.active = false; cap.fini(); // --- Lookahead --- if (sp_lookahead > 0) { common_params_sampling sps = {}; sps.temp = 0.0f; common_sampler * smpl = common_sampler_init(dft.model, sps); for (int s = 0; s < sp_lookahead; s++) { llama_token tok = common_sampler_sample(smpl, dft.ctx, -1); common_sampler_accept(smpl, tok, true); cap.active = true; cap.reset(); llama_decode(dft.ctx, llama_batch_get_one(&tok, 1)); cap.active = false; cap.fini(); } common_sampler_free(smpl); } // --- Compute importance for this chunk --- auto imp = compute_imp(cap.steps, n_chunk_tok, n_layers); // --- Merge scores: keep the MIDDLE stride tokens (exclude overlap edges) --- // For the first chunk, keep [0..stride). For middle chunks, keep [stride..window-stride). // For the last chunk, keep all remaining. int keep_start = (n_chunks == 0) ? 0 : stride; int keep_end = (chunk_end >= n_input) ? n_chunk_tok : (sp_window - stride); // But keep_start/keep_end are relative to the chunk. Map to global positions. int gstart = pos + keep_start; int gend = pos + keep_end; if (gend > n_input) gend = n_input; for (int i = gstart; i < gend; i++) { int local = i - pos; if (local >= 0 && local < n_chunk_tok) { all_scores[i] += imp.scores[local]; score_cnt[i]++; } } LOG(" Kept scores for [%d..%d) (local [%d..%d))\n", gstart, gend, keep_start, keep_end); n_chunks++; pos += stride; } // Average overlapping scores for (int i = 0; i < n_input; i++) { if (score_cnt[i] > 0) all_scores[i] /= score_cnt[i]; else all_scores[i] = 1.0f; } auto t1 = ggml_time_us(); LOG(" Sliding window done: %d chunks, %.0f ms\n", n_chunks, (t1-t0)/1000.0); LOG(" Score range: [%f, %f]\n", *std::min_element(all_scores.begin(), all_scores.end()), *std::max_element(all_scores.begin(), all_scores.end())); // =================================================================== // Select important chunks (full prompt) // =================================================================== std::vector kept = select_chunks(all_scores, n_input, sp_chunk, sp_keep_pct, 128); int n_sparse = (int)kept.size(); // Cap sparse tokens to avoid OOM on target model's attention matrix. // When capped, keep every Nth token to maintain even coverage. if (n_sparse > sp_max_keep) { std::vector capped; int step = n_sparse / sp_max_keep; for (int i = 0; i < n_sparse && (int)capped.size() < sp_max_keep; i += step) capped.push_back(kept[i]); // Ensure last token is included if (capped.back() != kept.back()) { capped.back() = kept.back(); } kept = capped; n_sparse = (int)kept.size(); LOG(" Capped to %d tokens (max_keep)\n", n_sparse); } LOG("Selected %d/%d tokens (%.0f%%)\n", n_sparse, n_input, 100.0f*n_sparse/n_input); // =================================================================== // Sparse prefill on target // =================================================================== auto t2 = ggml_time_us(); llama_batch batch = llama_batch_init(n_sparse, 0, 1); common_batch_clear(batch); for (int i = 0; i < n_sparse; i++) common_batch_add(batch, inp[kept[i]], kept[i], {0}, (i == n_sparse-1) ? 1 : 0); int ret = llama_decode(tgt_ctx, batch); if (ret < 0) LOG_ERR("sparse prefill error: %d\n", ret); llama_batch_free(batch); auto t3 = ggml_time_us(); LOG("Sparse prefill: %.0f ms (%.0f t/s)\n", (t3-t2)/1000.0, n_sparse/((t3-t2)/1000.0*1000.0)); // =================================================================== // Decode // =================================================================== common_params_sampling smp = params.sampling; common_sampler * smpl = common_sampler_init(tgt_m, smp); for (int i = 0; i < n_input; i++) LOG("%s", common_token_to_piece(tgt_ctx, inp[i]).c_str()); LOG("\n"); int np = 0; auto t4 = ggml_time_us(); while (true) { llama_token id = common_sampler_sample(smpl, tgt_ctx, -1); common_sampler_accept(smpl, id, true); LOG("%s", common_token_to_piece(tgt_ctx, id).c_str()); np++; if (llama_vocab_is_eog(vocab, id)) break; if (params.n_predict >= 0 && np >= params.n_predict) break; llama_decode(tgt_ctx, llama_batch_get_one(&id, 1)); } auto t5 = ggml_time_us(); LOG("\n\n"); // =================================================================== // Results // =================================================================== double spec_ms = (t1-t0)/1000.0; double prefill_ms = (t3-t2)/1000.0; double decode_ms = (t5-t4)/1000.0; double total_ms = (t5-t0)/1000.0; double est_full = 1000.0 * n_input / 270.0; LOG("═ RESULTS ═══════════════════════════\n"); LOG("Prompt: %d → sparse: %d (%.0f%%)\n", n_input, n_sparse, 100.0f*n_sparse/n_input); LOG("Sliding: %7.0f ms (%5d chunks)\n", spec_ms, n_chunks); LOG("Sparse: %7.0f ms (%.0f t/s)\n", prefill_ms, n_sparse/(prefill_ms/1000.0)); LOG("Decode: %7.0f ms (%.0f t/s)\n", decode_ms, np/(decode_ms/1000.0)); LOG("Total: %7.0f ms\n", total_ms); LOG("Full (est): %7.0f ms\n", est_full); if (est_full > 0) LOG("Speedup: %.1f×\n", est_full / (total_ms + 1.0)); LOG("\n"); common_sampler_free(smpl); llama_free(tgt_ctx); llama_model_free(tgt_m); llama_free(dft.ctx); llama_model_free(dft.model); llama_backend_free(); return 0; } ```