Strata Files

A frozen engine no longer hangs the server, Windows AMD counts the desktop's VRAM, and a batch of setup fixes from your reports.

The server notices a silent engine (#481): if the engine prints nothing during a request for engine_silence_s seconds (default 300, longer while a long prompt is being read; 0 turns it off), or never answers a stop, the server ends the request with an error and the next request restarts the engine. Before, both sides could wait for each other forever. The cause of the reported freeze is still being traced with the reporter.

AMD on Windows (#497, PRs [#380] and [#377] by BlueKingMuch):

• The engine counts the desktop's VRAM (the WDDM budget), so the expert cache no longer spills into system RAM (an RX 6800: 31 -> 42 tokens/s). STRATA_WDDM_BUDGET=0 turns it off.
• The PCIe probe is timed on the host there (it read impossible values before).

A steadier PCIe probe (#485): the best of four timed bursts, and the share of missed experts read over PCIe follows the measured speed smoothly below 20 GB/s instead of jumping. Above 20 GB/s nothing changes.

Setup:

• UD-Q4_K_XL on several GPUs (#498): with enough RAM (~135 GB), setup offers the layer split; --gpus is honoured. A start with --gpus on a RAM-budget config no longer fails.
• Mirrors and manual downloads (#495): HF_ENDPOINT is honoured (e.g. https://hf-mirror.com), also for the draft layer's download. Setup prints the folder and file names it expects for files you already have.
• --vram-reserve-mib N (#493): keeps N MiB of VRAM free for other programs; documented in INSTALL.md.
• Start errors (#496): when the engine stops before it is ready, the error shows the end of its log.
• Messages (#505): the start messages match the mode (mapped, resident, RAM budget).

Checked before the release:

• The same answers as 0.1.36 on all four quants (Q2_0, IQ3_XXS, IQ3_S, the Coder), 10/10 each, and the prompt path's internal state at 4K and 20K tokens.
• Speed:
• the 5-pair A/B on Q2_0 and IQ3_S: +0.9 / -0.1 / +0.9 / +0.3%, the same expert slots;
• a decode re-check at 32K and 128K (3 + 2 alternating pairs): the same speed.
• Kernel parity tests, real use at a 57K-token prompt (Q2_0, the Coder), Linux (WSL) Q2_0 identical 10/10.
• AMD on Windows: the HIP zip builds. The two PRs are reviewed and Windows-HIP-only, but they are untested on an AMD card here (we have none); BlueKingMuch measured them on an RX 6800.
• Tests: tools/setup 277, server 172.

Updating: run UPDATE.bat (Linux: ./update.sh). Setup installs engine 0.1.37.

The ready-made Strata engines for Windows, which START-HERE.bat fetches by itself:

• strata-windows-x64.zip: NVIDIA (RTX 20 / 30 / 40 / 50: sm_75, sm_86, sm_89, sm_120 + PTX), CUDA 13.0, needs an NVIDIA driver 580 or newer. Contents: strata.exe, strata-vision.exe (the optional image encoder), BUILD.json.
• strata-windows-x64-hip.zip: AMD (gfx1100, gfx1101, gfx1102, gfx1200, gfx1201, gfx1030), ROCm 10.2.0a20260930 from AMD's TheRock builds, needs a current AMD driver. Contents: strata.exe, strata-device.exe, the HIP runtime next to them, BUILD.json, rocm\ (the ROCm libraries and their licenses).

Strata is free and open source. If it runs well on your PC, a coffee keeps the work on it going: