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Fork Notes: ds4-strix-halo

A focused Strix Halo (gfx1151) fork of antirez/ds4. This document records the base, the audit, what was retained, what was rejected, and the policy for future upstream merges.

Upstream base commit

The fork starts from current upstream main (the clone at /home/user/source/ds4-strix-halo). The original ROCm work lived on the deleted upstream new-rocm branch and is already merged into main, so main is the correct Strix Halo base.

ds4fa audit

julianmb/ds4fa was compared against upstream. The common ancestor is:

baa084482020263a17a3b33a238f6f0809b425fd

Since that point:

  • Upstream has 323 commits not present in ds4fa.
  • ds4fa has 15 commits not present in upstream.

A wholesale rebase or merge of ds4fa is therefore the wrong approach: it would remove or replace a large amount of newer upstream code, including the upstream Metal backend and the current ROCm architecture.

What was retained (adapted to upstream)

  • ROCm/HIP startup diagnostics: build/runtime/driver HIP versions, device name and gcnArchName, managed/concurrent-managed/pageable memory support, HIP-visible memory, total system RAM, and the TTM/GTT pages_limit.
  • Strix Halo memory diagnostics: warning when the TTM/GTT limit is below 75% of system RAM, and warning when a model is sized too close to the limit.
  • A current ROCm smoke test (tests/rocm_smoke.c) against the ds4_gpu API, exposed as make rocm-smoke.
  • A Strix Halo-focused README plus updated STRIXHALO.md (ROCm 7.2.3, preferring amd-ttm over hard-coded boot parameters).

What was rejected and why

  • ds4_hip.cpp backend and hip/ kernel tree: upstream's ROCm backend is substantially newer and more complete.
  • Removal of the Metal backend: this fork keeps upstream backends intact.
  • q4_guard.py: its useful checks belong in the runtime (now the startup diagnostics), not as a separate script.
  • The old ds4fa README: describes incomplete or superseded behavior.

Policy for future upstream merges

  • Track antirez/ds4 main; merge or rebase regularly.
  • Keep Strix Halo additions confined to:
    • rocm/ds4_rocm_runtime.cuh (diagnostics only),
    • ds4_rocm.h (version include),
    • tests/rocm_smoke.c and the Makefile ROCm targets,
    • this repository's docs (README.md, STRIXHALO.md, FORK_NOTES.md).
  • Do not reintroduce rejected ds4fa components.
  • Do not replace upstream allocation/cache lifetimes (e.g. with hipMallocAsync) without profiling and broad regression testing.

Tooling

  • make rocm-smoke — allocation/copy/cleanup + optional real-model smoke.
  • make rocm-diag — print only the runtime profile.
  • make rocm-bench-quick — confirm gfx1151 kernels execute and report bandwidth.
  • make ci — strict smoke test + quick bench + misc/sync-check.sh.
  • misc/sync-check.sh — enforces the divergence policy (fails if too far behind upstream, or too far ahead without a FORK_NOTES.md update).
  • misc/sync.sh — fetches upstream, runs the policy check, and rebases the current branch onto upstream/main.