docs/model-comparison.md

Model Comparison

All Variants

Model	Latent	Enc	Pred	Params	f32 Size	Quantized	Cos	ESP32 predict	ESP32 encode	Best For
baseline	192	6	6	~14M	54.6 MB	10.9 MB (INT8+Q4)	0.999	828 ms	~10,000 ms	Quality reference
slim_48d	48	2	2	~3M	~2 MB	~1 MB	pending	~300 ms*	~3,000 ms*	Tiny edge
slim_64d	64	3	3	~5M	~3 MB	~2 MB	pending	~400 ms*	~4,000 ms*	Small edge
slim_96d	96	2	3	~8M	~3.5 MB	~2 MB	pending	~400 ms*	~4,000 ms*	Balanced
slim_96d	96	4	4	~10M	36.8 MB	9.8 MB (INT8+Q4)	0.9982	583 ms	6,416 ms	Production
slim_128d	128	4	4	~12M	~5 MB	~3 MB	pending	~500 ms*	~5,000 ms*	Quality bias
slim_192d	192	4	4	~13M	~40 MB	~12 MB	pending	~600 ms*	~6,000 ms*	Layer depth
hybrid_ALAL	64	4	4	3.0M	~12 MB	3.9 MB (LQ40)	pending	152 ms	922 ms*	Max compression
elastic	64	4	4	~10M	~4 MB	~2 MB	pending	~400 ms*	~4,000 ms*	Truncatable
baseline Q4 pred	192	6	6	~14M	54.6 MB	23.6 MB	0.998	828 ms	~10,000 ms	Large edge
WANDA 20%	192	6	6	~14M	54.6 MB	22.0 MB	~0.99	~660 ms*	~10,000 ms	Pruning research
WANDA 40%	192	6	6	~14M	54.6 MB	25.1 MB	~0.97	~500 ms*	~10,000 ms	Max sparsity

* Projected — not yet benchmarked on hardware

Quantization Formats

Format	Encoder	Predictor	Compression	Quality	Hardware
f32	f32	f32	1x	1.000	All
INT8	INT8 per-channel	f32	~2x	0.9999	ESP32, host
INT8+Q4	INT8 per-channel	Q4 block	~5x	0.999	Production
Q4 pred only	f32	Q4 block	~2x	0.998	Large edge
Full Q4	Q4 block	Q4 block	~6x	0.93	Research
Ternary	-	{-1,0,+1}	~8x	~0.85	Experimental
WANDA pruned	-	Q4 + sparse	~0.8x	~0.97	Research

Hardware Tiers

Tier	Model	Format	Size	Use Case
ESP32-P4	hybrid_ALAL, slim_96d	LQ40	3.9-9.8 MB	Edge robotics
Browser WASM	slim_96d	LQ40	9.8 MB	Client-side demos
Host CPU	any	safetensors	2-54 MB	Development
FPGA	baseline, slim	Q4 → hardwired	0 MB (gates)	Custom silicon
ASIC	any Q4	shift-add	0 MB	Mass production

Pareto Frontier

Size (MB)
    ^
 9.8 |                                    ● slim_96d (INT8+Q4)
    |                     ● slim_96d full
 8   |
 7   |
 6   |
 5   |
 4   |   ● hybrid_ALAL (3.9 MB)
    |
 3   |
 2   |
 1   |
    +----------------------------------------> Quality (cos vs f32)
       0.85    0.90    0.95    0.99    1.00