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This PR was created by the merge bot to help merge the original PR into the main branch.
ghstack PR number: #13474 by @SS-JIA
^ Please use this as the source of truth for the PR details, comments, and reviews
ghstack PR base: https://github.com/pytorch/executorch/tree/gh/SS-JIA/292/base
ghstack PR head: https://github.com/pytorch/executorch/tree/gh/SS-JIA/292/head
Merge bot PR base: https://github.com/pytorch/executorch/tree/gh/SS-JIA/291/orig
Merge bot PR head: https://github.com/pytorch/executorch/tree/gh/SS-JIA/292/orig
@diff-train-skip-merge

Pull Request resolved: #13474



* Allocate memory for weight tensors right before the prepacking shader is dispatched, rather than while building the graph
* Move allocation of shared objects (i.e. memory for intermediate tensors) to occur after prepacking

## Motivation

Prevent screen blackout (Llama 3.2 1B) / device crash (Llama 3.2 3B) when running Llama 3.2 models on Samsung Galaxy S24. This behaviour is related to high peak memory usage when loading the model.

## Full Context

During model loading, Vulkan delegate needs to store 3 copies of constant data in memory at various points:

* source data obtained from loading the model
* staging buffer
* GPU texture/buffer

The general rationale of this change is to allocate memory for each copy only when necessary to minimize the "overlap" when all 3 exist at once.

### Current Order of operations

Legend:
* `W` represents total weight nbytes
* `w` represents weight nbytes for one tensor
* `A` represents total activations nbytes
* `M` represents approximation of total memory footprint

First, model file is loaded

Then, when building compute graph, for each weight tensor:
1. Weight data is loaded from NamedDataMap (`M = W`)
2. GPU texture/buffer for weight is initialized + memory allocated (`M = 2W`)
3. After building the graph, `graph->prepare()` is called which currently allocates memory for the activation tensors as well (`M = 2W + A`)

Then, during the prepacking stage for each weight tensor, each weight tensor is copied individually:
1. Staging buffer initialized (`M = 2W + A + w`)
2. Copy CPU weight data to staging + CPU Weight data is freed (`M = 2W + A`)
3. Compute shader dispatch to copy staging to GPU texture/buffer + free staging buffer (`M = 2W + A - w`)

The peak usage in mainline will be `M = 2W + A + w`

### Revised order of operations

This change revises the order of operations:

1. Weight data is loaded from NamedDataMap (`M = W`)
2. GPU texture/buffer for weight is initialized, but **memory is not allocated** (`M = W`)

Then, during the prepacking stage for each weight tensor, each weight tensor is copied individually:
1. Staging buffer initialized (`M = W + w`)
2. **Memory allocated for GPU texture/buffer** (`M = W + 2w`)
3. Copy CPU weight data to staging + CPU Weight data is freed (`M = W + w`)
4. Compute shader dispatch to copy staging to GPU texture/buffer + free staging buffer (`M = W`)

**Then, after all prepacking operations complete, only then is Activation memory allocated** (`M = W + A`)

Under this scheme, peak memory is reduced to `M = W + A` (or alternatively `M = W + 2w` if `2w > A`) which is (or at least very close to) the theoretical minimum.
ghstack-source-id: 303862303

Differential Revision: [D80460033](https://our.internmc.facebook.com/intern/diff/D80460033/)
@pytorchbot pytorchbot requested a review from SS-JIA as a code owner August 19, 2025 02:24
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pytorch-bot bot commented Aug 19, 2025

🔗 Helpful Links

🧪 See artifacts and rendered test results at hud.pytorch.org/pr/pytorch/executorch/13500

Note: Links to docs will display an error until the docs builds have been completed.

✅ You can merge normally! (1 Unrelated Failure)

As of commit 6c18621 with merge base 5ff0208 (image):

BROKEN TRUNK - The following job failed but were present on the merge base:

👉 Rebase onto the `viable/strict` branch to avoid these failures

  • pull / test-binary-size-linux-gcc / linux-job (gh) (trunk failure)
    /pytorch/executorch/kernels/portable/cpu/op_stack.cpp:129:26: error: comparison of integer expressions of different signedness: ‘size_t’ {aka ‘long unsigned int’} and ‘ssize_t’ {aka ‘long int’} [-Werror=sign-compare]

This comment was automatically generated by Dr. CI and updates every 15 minutes.

@meta-cla meta-cla bot added the CLA Signed This label is managed by the Facebook bot. Authors need to sign the CLA before a PR can be reviewed. label Aug 19, 2025
An error occurred while trying to automatically change base from gh/SS-JIA/291/orig to main August 19, 2025 03:06
@SS-JIA SS-JIA deleted the branch gh/SS-JIA/291/orig October 15, 2025 18:00
@SS-JIA SS-JIA closed this Oct 15, 2025
@SS-JIA SS-JIA deleted the gh/SS-JIA/292/orig branch October 15, 2025 18:00
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