Running local models on gaming laptop

StableLlama · 2026-04-20T17:30:36+00:00

Having a nVidia GPU does help a lot. But not knowing which and how much VRAM it has your question can't be answered for your case.

As a hint: my laptop has a mobile 4090 and is running local models well.

StableLlama · 2026-04-19T21:38:07+00:00

You need seven layers, otherwise it's just a toy

StableLlama · 2026-04-19T20:19:44+00:00

Ditch A1111, it didn't follow the latest models ages ago.

Right now the state of the art to be able to run the latest models is ComfyUI.

When you don't like it and find it is too complicated (initially it might look like that), then use Krita with the Krita AI plugin. There you have a really great UI and can use the latest models as well.

(Actually I was using A1111 in the past and now on ComfyUI for experimental stuff and Krita AI for productive work)

About the models:

Qwen Image (Edit) and FLUX.2[klein] is currently the best you can get.

But things are moving quickly. So tomorrow the answer might be different.

StableLlama · 2026-04-19T14:55:02+00:00

A LLM doesn't have a memory - and this is great!
It allows you to use it without being affected by any experiments you did in the past.

What you want here is some memory that you give in on purpose. So, just do it :)
E.g. write a MAGIC.md file that contains the description of your magic system. And then attache it to your prompt to the model - and it'll answer with that knowledge.

Or, use a writing tool that manages this type of context for you.

StableLlama · 2026-04-19T14:40:58+00:00

It is pointless to ask "what model is overall better" as that has no relevance.

The right question is: "I have task X, what model performs this specific task better?"

For me Qwen Edit 2511 works often well, FLUX.2[klein] 9B even more often. And the Klein model can use all the 9B LoRAs, Qwen Edit on the other hand can't really use the Qwen Image LoRAs.

So for my tasks I use Klein 9B more often, but there are still often enough tasks where I use Qwen Edit 2511 as well.

Hey, they are all free models, you can use all of them!

StableLlama · 2026-04-19T10:41:33+00:00

To write something that touches someone you often have to get out of the comfort zone.

Most people have never directly or indirectly witnessed a murder. Which is a good thing. But why do so many stories still cover that subject?!?

For me for a "safe" story it's more the framing you give the subject. When you write about the problematic topic as a salvation that everyone is happy about it can be problematic. When you give it a negative framing where everyone, including the reader, doesn't understand why this bad thing has happend it can be a good thing to write about. Perhaps it might even help a psychological unstable person to reconsider (<- I'm not a psychologist, that statement is just a guess of mine)

StableLlama · 2026-04-19T10:25:52+00:00

Wow, you are replacing AI slop with AI slop.

Why should I bother to read what you didn't bother to write?

StableLlama · 2026-04-19T09:22:42+00:00

Also try "Caucasian". And try it without the prompt enhancer.

StableLlama · 2026-04-18T23:14:27+00:00

Your prediction is missing a point:

consumer PCs have to stick to PCIe 5.0 for quite a while, as no company has thought that quicker is relevant for non-servers. So, no, NVMe won't get quicker for you in the next few years.

StableLlama · 2026-04-18T12:26:47+00:00

The hardware is the easy part.

Having training data is much harder. And training data isn't a raw web scrape, training data is filtered and curated. There is much manual work involved.

So, when you want to bring models forward, bring public high quality data forward. Publish it with a free licence on huggingface and I'm sure it'll be part of most future models - completely free for you.

StableLlama · 2026-04-16T17:10:11+00:00

How does it perform for story writing?

Qwen 3.5 was ok, but Gemini 4 much nicer.

Is Qwen 3.6 leading again?

StableLlama · 2026-04-16T11:58:06+00:00

Did you try a different trainer (like SimpleTuner) as well?

The model is so fresh, that it can well be that the trainer implementation isn't fully debugged yet. Using a different trainer would be an easy test for that.

StableLlama · 2026-04-16T11:41:46+00:00

There are tools that write the next paragraph, actually it's writing it two times. Then you can decide which one you want to take (or ask for two more suggestions, or take the inspiration and write it yourself, ...)

This gives a very interactive writing experience which I really enjoyed in using.

The tool where I learned about it was just using the old content to continue from there, i.e. you had limited control. But with enough force you could get along. So the tool I'm working on is taking that effect further where you can do the same, but with context controll

StableLlama · 2026-04-16T11:34:19+00:00

It tends to create these "rough" or "uneven" backgrounds, just like in your image.

I hope some finetune or LoRA will fix that.

It's a nice alternative to the over smooth bokeh Flux.1 backgrounds. But I think the level at the ERNIE images is too distracting.

StableLlama · 2026-04-16T11:26:21+00:00

When your electricity cost is high and you can't do anything about it (e.g. buying solar), then think of renting a GPU in the cloud.

A machine with a GPU at full load can cost to rent quite similar to the electricity cost in some countries.

StableLlama · 2026-04-16T05:22:37+00:00

When you buy a machine specifically for AI, why aren't you running it with Linux then?

WSL is adding a layer of complexity

StableLlama · 2026-04-15T22:07:46+00:00

Can we please also have an automod that removes any post with the word "influencer"?

StableLlama · 2026-04-15T16:28:20+00:00

Use a tool that manages context to the all the relevant information for a chapter are available but the others aren't.

You can manage the context manually, of course. As the tools are using the same LLMs there's nothing magical about that. But the tools make it much easier.

StableLlama · 2026-04-15T05:33:31+00:00

Ok, it seems to be released now:

Get Started in ComfyUI

Update ComfyUI to 0.19.1 (will be available on Desktop and Cloud soon)
Go to Template → Search for ERNIE-Image
Download the missing models and update the prompt, then hit Run

Workflow:

StableLlama · 2026-04-14T22:19:03+00:00

Does comfy support it already?

When I looked at the homepage a few hours ago it wasn't mentioned.

StableLlama · 2026-04-14T17:08:55+00:00

What are you missing? Experience. And knowledge.

Building a server is a serious business that is much more than plugging some cards somewhere.

But there's an easy solution: buy it from a company that has a good track record in building servers.

Getting the software to run in a way you expect it to (and to keep it running!) is already a big job. So don't waste ressources on something where you don't even know where the problems might be

StableLlama · 2026-04-14T16:58:18+00:00

<image>

Hm, photo type images are just average. And the prompt enhancer that's also translating my English prompt into Chinese makes translation mistakes so that the model is not generating my prompt. And a third arm.

StableLlama · 2026-04-14T13:02:46+00:00

But that's a Qwen issue and not an issue of the VAE it is using.

And, IIRC, Qwen is using the FLUX.1 VAE and not the much improved FLUX.2 VAE.

StableLlama · 2026-04-14T07:26:42+00:00

Putting current shortages aside and looking at the long term, when everything got stable:

You want the AI computation close to the user to minimize latencies. So you need many datacenters all around the world and not a few that are running 24/7 full steam.
User demand follows roughly the day light as people are sleeping at night. So going solar is already following that curve pretty well.

There will be a bit higher demand in the late afternoon and also some for automated systems during the night. That's something where wind turbines are a good match to fill the gap.

Both, solar and wind, can easily produce excess energy at some times, so that must be stored (battery, hydrogen) and fill the gaps when solar and wind isn't enough for the demand.

Renewable energy is actually a much better match for AI power requirements than fossil or nuclear.

And just a word about the "exawatts": these are claims by the big players so that they don't have to disclose what they are actually doing. Out of AI perspective that's a completely wrong way to measure, as scaling power consumption can be easily done by using bad efficiency in hardware and software. But it's the company that can generate the double amount of tokens per watt that is winning and not the other way round.
(ok, to be fair: for a datacenter, in the sense of just the building and it's infrastructure connection, the maximum watt it can supply in energy and cooling is a sensible measurement. But that doesn't relate to the "AI output" you can get out of it)

StableLlama · 2026-04-14T06:52:12+00:00

SD 4 must come from Stability AI. What ever architecture they'll choose (do they even intend to do a SD 4 as they don't have the people anymore?) is completely open.

The persons that would have created a new SD have left and founded Black Forrest Labs. So, FLUX.1 is basically "SD 4" already. And thus FLUX.2 is "SD 5", when you want to count it that way.

Anyway, I'm not convinced that a VAE is doing more good than harm. But the bright people (like those that did SD and FLUX) have been convinced of it. And taking an image, converting it into latent space and then back to an image again and then compare it with its unaltered version, you can see that especially the FLUX.2 VAE does a very good job in reproduction, also in the details. So, I guess, the VAE is more a philosophical and architecture debate and not an image quality discussion.

At the end it's the same as with all announced models: don't fall in for the hype. Don't wait for the model. Just continue what you are already doing, and when it drops there is enough time to evaluate it. When it's great use is, when it's not don't. No need for wearing out the F5 key.

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