vllm-omni/docs/user_guide/diffusion/cpu_offload_diffusion.md

# CPU Offloading for Diffusion Models

## Overview

vLLM-Omni provides two offloading strategies to reduce GPU memory usage for diffusion models:

1. **Model-level (Sequential) Offloading**: Mutual exclusion between DiT model and encoder - only one is on GPU at a time.
2. **Layerwise (Blockwise) Offloading**: Keeps only one transformer block on GPU at a time with compute-memory overlap.

Both strategies use pinned memory for faster CPU-GPU transfers. The strategies are **mutually exclusive** for now - if both are enabled, layerwise takes priority.


## Model-level (Sequential) Offloading

### How It Works

Model-level offloading implements mutual exclusion between DiT transformer and encoder modules using pre forward hooks:

- **When encoders run**: DiT transformer is offloaded to CPU
- **When DiT runs**: Encoders are offloaded to CPU
- **VAE**: Stays resident on GPU

Before each module's forward pass, the hook automatically moves it to GPU while offloading the other module group to CPU. Transfers use pinned memory for speed.

### Usage

**Python API:**
```python
from vllm_omni import Omni

m = Omni(model="Wan-AI/Wan2.2-T2V-A14B-Diffusers", enable_cpu_offload=True)
```

**CLI:**
```bash
vllm-omni serve diffusion Wan-AI/Wan2.2-T2V-A14B-Diffusers --enable-cpu-offload
```

### Limitations
- Cold start latency increases
- Adds overhead from CPU-GPU transfers between encoder and denoising phases
- Support single GPU only for now


## Layerwise (Blockwise) Offloading

### How It Works

Layerwise offloading keeps only one transformer block on GPU at a time.

As each block completes, the next block is prefetched to GPU while the current block is freed. The pre and forward hooks utilized by layerwise offloading apply a separate CUDA stream (`copy_stream`) to overlap weight transfer with computation, and retain flattened tensors in pinned CPU memory for block parameters re-materialization. Encoders, VAE, and non-block DiT modules (embeddings, norms) always stay on GPU.

**Execution Flow:**

| Block | Pre-forward Hook | Forward | Post-forward Hook |
|-------|------------------|---------|-------------------|
| block-0 | Prefetch block-1 (async) | Compute block-0 | Free block-0 |
| block-1 | Prefetch block-2 (async) | Compute block-1 | Free block-1 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... |
| block-(n-1) | **Prefetch block-0** (async) | Compute block-(n-1) | Free block-(n-1) |

Each transformer block has a `LayerwiseOffloadHook` that prefetches the next block before forward and frees the current block after forward.

Layerwise offloading is primarily recommended for large **video generation models** where the compute cost per block is high enough to effectively overlap with memory prefetch operations. For example, Wan2.2 T2V and I2V pipelines.

### Usage

**Python API:**
```python
from vllm_omni import Omni

# Text-to-video
m = Omni(model="Wan-AI/Wan2.2-T2V-A14B-Diffusers", enable_layerwise_offload=True)

# Or image-to-video
m = Omni(model="Wan-AI/Wan2.2-I2V-A14B-Diffusers", enable_layerwise_offload=True)
```

**CLI:**
```bash
# Text-to-video
vllm-omni serve diffusion Wan-AI/Wan2.2-T2V-A14B-Diffusers --enable-layerwise-offload

# Or image-to-video
vllm-omni serve diffusion Wan-AI/Wan2.2-I2V-A14B-Diffusers --enable-layerwise-offload
```

### To Support a Model

Models must define the blocks attribute name for layerwise offloading:

```python
class WanTransformer3DModel(nn.Module):
    _layerwise_offload_blocks_attr = "blocks"  # Attribute name containing transformer blocks

    def __init__(self):
        self.blocks = nn.ModuleList([...])  # Transformer blocks
```

### Limitations
- Cold start latency increases because of
    1) components are loaded to CPU first at the very first during initialization,
    2) weight consolidation and pinning
- Performance depends on compute cost and H2D bandwidth as well
- Support single GPU only for now


### Implementation Notes

**Module Discovery**

The offloader automatically discovers pipeline components:

- **DiT modules**: `transformer`, `transformer_2`, `dit`
- **Encoders**: `text_encoder`, `text_encoder_2`, `text_encoder_3`, `image_encoder`
- **VAE**: `vae`

**Hook System**

Both strategies use vLLM-Omni's hook registry system (`HookRegistry` and `ModelHook`) to register pre/post forward callbacks on modules, enabling automatic swapping without modifying model code.

**Backend Architecture**

```
OffloadBackend (base class)
├── ModelLevelOffloadBackend → uses SequentialOffloadHook
└── LayerWiseOffloadBackend → uses LayerwiseOffloadHook
```

Factory function `get_offload_backend()` selects the appropriate backend based on configuration.


## Supported Models

| Architecture | Example Models | DiT Class | Model-Level Offload | Layerwise Offload | Blocks Attr (Layerwise specific) |
|--------------|----------------|-----------|---------------------|-------------------|-------------|
| Wan22Pipeline | `Wan-AI/Wan2.2-T2V-A14B-Diffusers` | `WanTransformer3DModel` | ✓ | ✓ | `"blocks"` |
| Wan22I2VPipeline | `Wan-AI/Wan2.2-I2V-A14B-Diffusers` | `WanTransformer3DModel` | ✓ | ✓ | `"blocks"` |
| QwenImagePipeline | `Qwen/Qwen-Image` | `QwenImageTransformer2DModel` | ✓ | ✓ | `"transformer_blocks"` |

**Notes:**
- Model-Level Offloading is expected to be supported by all common diffusion models (DiT and encoders) naturally
- Layerwise Offloading requires DiT class to define `_layerwise_offload_blocks_attr` pointing to transformer blocks