NVIDIA Optimized Frameworks
NVIDIA Optimized Frameworks (Latest Release) Download PDF

PyTorch Release 19.06

The NVIDIA container image for PyTorch, release 19.06, is available on NGC.

Contents of the PyTorch container

This container image contains the complete source of the version of PyTorch in /opt/pytorch. It is pre-built and installed in Conda default environment (/opt/conda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/torch/) in the container image. The container also includes the following:

Driver Requirements

Release 19.06 is based on NVIDIA CUDA 10.1.168, which requires NVIDIA Driver release 418.xx. However, if you are running on Tesla (Tesla V100, Tesla P4, Tesla P40, or Tesla P100), you may use NVIDIA driver release 384.111+ or 410. The CUDA driver's compatibility package only supports particular drivers. For a complete list of supported drivers, see the CUDA Application Compatibility topic. For more information, see CUDA Compatibility and Upgrades.

GPU Requirements

Release 19.06 supports CUDA compute capability 6.0 and higher. This corresponds to GPUs in the Pascal, Volta, and Turing families. Specifically, for a list of GPUs that this compute capability corresponds to, see CUDA GPUs. For additional support details, see Deep Learning Frameworks Support Matrix.

Key Features and Enhancements

This PyTorch release includes the following key features and enhancements.

Tensor Core Examples

These examples focus on achieving the best performance and convergence from NVIDIA Volta Tensor Cores by using the latest deep learning example networks for training. Each example model trains with mixed precision Tensor Cores on Volta, therefore you can get results much faster than training without tensor cores. This model is tested against each NGC monthly container release to ensure consistent accuracy and performance over time. This container includes the following tensor core examples.

Automatic Mixed Precision (AMP)

NVIDIA’s Automatic Mixed Precision (AMP) for PyTorch is available in this container through a preinstalled release of Apex. AMP enables users to try mixed precision training by adding only 3 lines of Python to an existing FP32 (default) script. Amp will choose an optimal set of operations to cast to FP16. FP16 operations require 2X reduced memory bandwidth (resulting in a 2X speedup for bandwidth-bound operations like most pointwise ops) and 2X reduced memory storage for intermediates (reducing the overall memory consumption of your model). Additionally, GEMMs and convolutions with FP16 inputs can run on Tensor Cores, which provide an 8X increase in computational throughput over FP32 arithmetic.

Comprehensive guidance and examples demonstrating AMP for PyTorch can be found in the documentation.

For more information about AMP, see the Training With Mixed Precision Guide.

Announcements

In the next release, we will no longer support Ubuntu 16.04. Release 19.07 will instead support Ubuntu 18.04.

Known Issues

  • There is a known issue when running certain tests in PyTorch 19.06 on systems with Skylake CPUs, such as DGX-2, that is due to OpenBLAS version 0.3.6. If you are impacted, run:
    Copy
    Copied!
                

    /opt/conda/bin/conda install openblas!=0.3.6

© Copyright 2024, NVIDIA. Last updated on Sep 30, 2024.