lightning/docs/source-pytorch/fabric/fundamentals/precision.rst

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Save memory with mixed precision
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What is Mixed Precision?
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PyTorch, like most deep learning frameworks, trains on 32-bit floating-point (FP32) arithmetic by default.
However, many deep learning models do not require this to reach complete accuracy.
By conducting operations in half-precision format while keeping minimum information in single-precision to maintain as much information as possible in crucial areas of the network, mixed precision training delivers significant computational speedup.
Switching to mixed precision has resulted in considerable training speedups since the introduction of Tensor Cores in the Volta and Turing architectures.
It combines FP32 and lower-bit floating-points (such as FP16) to reduce memory footprint and increase performance during model training and evaluation.
It accomplishes this by recognizing the steps that require complete accuracy and employing a 32-bit floating-point for those steps only, while using a 16-bit floating-point for the rest.
When compared to complete precision training, mixed precision training delivers all of these benefits while ensuring that no task-specific accuracy is lost [`1 <https://docs.nvidia.com/deeplearning/performance/mixed-precision-training/index.html>`_].

This is how you select the precision in Fabric:

.. code-block::

    from lightning.fabric import Fabric

    # This is the default
    fabric = Fabric(precision=32)

    # FP16 mixed precision
    fabric = Fabric(precision=16)

    # Precision values can also be set as a string
    fabric = Fabric(precision="16")

    # BFloat16 precision (Volta GPUs and later)
    fabric = Fabric(precision="bf16")

    # Double precision
    fabric = Fabric(precision=64)


The same values can also be set through the :doc:`command line interface <launch>`:

.. code-block:: bash

    lightning run model train.py --precision=bf16


.. note::

    In some cases, it is essential to remain in FP32 for numerical stability, so keep this in mind when using mixed precision.
    For example, when running scatter operations during the forward (such as torchpoint3d), computation must remain in FP32.


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FP16 Mixed Precision
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In most cases, mixed precision uses FP16.
Supported `PyTorch operations <https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/amp.html#op-specific-behavior>`_ automatically run in FP16, saving memory and improving throughput on the supported accelerators.
Since computation happens in FP16, there is a chance of numerical instability during training.
This is handled internally by a dynamic grad scaler which skips invalid steps and adjusts the scaler to ensure subsequent steps fall within a finite range.
For more information `see the autocast docs <https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/amp.html#gradient-scaling>`_.

This is how you enable FP16 in Fabric:

.. code-block::

    # Select FP16 mixed precision
    fabric = Fabric(precision=16)

    # Or as a string
    fabric = Fabric(precision="16")

.. note::

    When using TPUs, setting ``precision=16`` will enable bfloat16, the only supported half-precision type on TPUs.


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BFloat16 Mixed Precision
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BFloat16 Mixed precision is similar to FP16 mixed precision, however, it maintains more of the "dynamic range" that FP32 offers.
This means it is able to improve numerical stability than FP16 mixed precision.
For more information, see `this TPU performance blogpost <https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/bfloat16-the-secret-to-high-performance-on-cloud-tpus>`_.

.. code-block::

    # Select BF16 precision
    fabric = Fabric(precision="bf16")


Under the hood, we use `torch.autocast <https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/amp.html>`__ with the dtype set to ``bfloat16``, with no gradient scaling.
It is also possible to use BFloat16 mixed precision on the CPU, relying on MKLDNN.

.. note::

    BFloat16 is also experimental and may not provide significant speedups or memory improvements, offering better numerical stability.
    Do note for GPUs, the most significant benefits require `Ampere <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere_(microarchitecture)>`_ based GPUs, such as A100s or 3090s.


----


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Control where precision gets applied
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Fabric automatically casts the data type and operations in the ``forward`` of your model:

.. code-block::

    fabric = Fabric(precision="bf16")

    model = ...
    optimizer = ...

    # Here, Fabric sets up the `model.forward` for precision auto-casting
    model, optimizer = fabric.setup(model, optimizer)

    # Precision casting gets handled in your forward, no code changes required
    output = model.forward(input)

    # Precision does NOT get applied here (only in forward)
    loss = loss_function(output, target)

If you want to enable operations in lower bit-precision **outside** your model's ``forward()``, you can use the :meth:`~lightning_fabric.fabric.Fabric.autocast` context manager:

.. code-block::

    # Precision now gets handled also in this part of the code:
    with fabric.autocast():
        loss = loss_function(output, target)