The KV cache previously used a tree structure which could
store multiple divergent sequences, which is good for cache
reuse. However, this is typically used in conjunction with
paged attention so each node in the tree can store just a
chunk of the KV cache and they can be stitched together later.
We don't currently do this, so the cache was storing copies of
the full cache for each past sequence.
This redundancy plus the lack of resource limits, caused significant
memory use as a conversation grew. Instead, this changes to store
a single entry for the cache, which can be prefix matched. Although
it is less ideal for multiple users, it largely matches Ollama's
current behavior. It can be improved as additional pieces are fleshed
out.
The previous approach tracked array lifecycles through reference
counting, where each array recorded its inputs and a reference count
that was decremented as dependents were freed. This is not really
necessary as MLX tracks references internally. It is also error
prone as it is easy to create new arrays and forget to free them
when the Go variable goes out of scope.
Instead, we can pin just the arrays we want (typically outputs and
specific intermediates, like the cache). All other arrays are freed
by default when we run sweep. This avoids most causes of memory leaks
while still giving the freedom to save what we want.
This change adds a new MLX based runner which includes:
* Method-based MLX bindings
* Subprocess-based MLX runner (x/mlxrunner)
* KV cache with tree management
* A basic sampler
The GLM4-MoE-Lite model has been ported to use the new bindings.
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Co-authored-by: Michael Yang <git@mxy.ng>
