Repository: ggml-org/llama.cpp
Pull request: vulkan: Optimize argsort

- Launch an appropriate number of invocations (next larger power of two). 32 invocations is common and the barrier is much cheaper there.
- Specialize for "needs bounds checking" vs not.
- Make the code less branchy and [[unroll]] the loops. In the final code, I see no branches inside the main loop (only predicated stores) when needs_bounds_check is false.
- Always sort ascending, then apply the ascending vs descending option when doing the final stores to memory.
- Copy the values into shared memory, makes them slightly cheaper to access.

argsort is used in MoE models and I've seen it consuming as much as ~6% of the time on 5090.

```
5090 before

llama-bench.exe -fa 1 -n 128 -p 512 -r 5 --prio 1 -m c:\models\Qwen_Qwen3-30B-A3B-Q2_K.gguf -m c:\models\\deepseek-v2-lite-safetensors\deepseek-v2-lite-Q4_K_M.gguf -m c:\models\gpt-oss-20b-mxfp4.gguf
ggml_vulkan: Found 1 Vulkan devices:
ggml_vulkan: 0 = NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (NVIDIA) | uma: 0 | fp16: 1 | bf16: 1 | warp size: 32 | shared memory: 49152 | int dot: 1 | matrix cores: NV_coopmat2
| model                          |       size |     params | backend    | ngl | fa |            test |                  t/s |
| ------------------------------ | ---------: | ---------: | ---------- | --: | -: | --------------: | -------------------: |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |      3692.93 ± 35.46 |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        178.74 ± 1.05 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |     6963.86 ± 151.75 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        233.44 ± 1.56 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |     6309.57 ± 212.52 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        213.15 ± 0.66 |

5090 after

ggml_vulkan: 0 = NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (NVIDIA) | uma: 0 | fp16: 1 | bf16: 1 | warp size: 32 | shared memory: 49152 | int dot: 1 | matrix cores: NV_coopmat2
| model                          |       size |     params | backend    | ngl | fa |            test |                  t/s |
| ------------------------------ | ---------: | ---------: | ---------- | --: | -: | --------------: | -------------------: |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |      3705.48 ± 27.75 |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        187.46 ± 0.70 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |     7031.33 ± 107.40 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        239.63 ± 1.29 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |      6451.10 ± 67.40 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        215.31 ± 2.27 |

4070 before

ggml_vulkan: 0 = NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (NVIDIA) | uma: 0 | fp16: 1 | bf16: 1 | warp size: 32 | shared memory: 49152 | int dot: 1 | matrix cores: NV_coopmat2
| model                          |       size |     params | backend    | ngl | fa |            test |                  t/s |
| ------------------------------ | ---------: | ---------: | ---------- | --: | -: | --------------: | -------------------: |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |      1429.72 ± 10.05 |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        134.21 ± 0.30 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |       1980.77 ± 5.35 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        162.06 ± 0.54 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |      2565.50 ± 21.49 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        120.41 ± 0.14 |

4070 after

ggml_vulkan: 0 = NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (NVIDIA) | uma: 0 | fp16: 1 | bf16: 1 | warp size: 32 | shared memory: 49152 | int dot: 1 | matrix cores: NV_coopmat2
| model                          |       size |     params | backend    | ngl | fa |            test |                  t/s |
| ------------------------------ | ---------: | ---------: | ---------- | --: | -: | --------------: | -------------------: |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |      1445.78 ± 10.08 |
| qwen3moe 30B.A3B Q2_K - Medium |  10.15 GiB |    30.53 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        136.71 ± 0.38 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |       1991.46 ± 7.27 |
| deepseek2 16B Q4_K - Medium    |   9.65 GiB |    15.71 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        162.19 ± 0.83 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           pp512 |      2571.92 ± 13.14 |
| gpt-oss ?B MXFP4 MoE           |  11.27 GiB |    20.91 B | Vulkan     |  99 |  1 |           tg128 |        120.03 ± 0.20 |
```




Changed files:
filename: ggml/src/ggml-vulkan/ggml-vulkan.cpp
patch: @@ -345,6 +345,9 @@ enum vk_conv_shapes {
     CONV_SHAPE_COUNT,
 };
 
+static constexpr uint32_t num_argsort_pipelines = 11;
+static constexpr uint32_t max_argsort_cols = 1 << (num_argsort_pipelines-1);
+
 struct vk_device_struct {
     std::recursive_mutex mutex;
 
@@ -505,7 +508,7 @@ struct vk_device_struct {
     vk_pipeline pipeline_rope_neox_f32, pipeline_rope_neox_f16;
     vk_pipeline pipeline_rope_multi_f32, pipeline_rope_multi_f16;
     vk_pipeline pipeline_rope_vision_f32, pipeline_rope_vision_f16;
-    vk_pipeline pipeline_argsort_f32;
+    vk_pipeline pipeline_argsort_f32[num_argsort_pipelines];
     vk_pipeline pipeline_sum_rows_f32;
     vk_pipeline pipeline_argmax_f32;
     vk_pipeline pipeline_count_equal_i32;
@@ -870,7 +873,6 @@ struct vk_op_soft_max_push_constants {
 
 struct vk_op_argsort_push_constants {
     uint32_t ncols;
-    uint32_t ncols_pad;
     int32_t order;
 };
 
@@ -3099,7 +3101,9 @@ static void ggml_vk_load_shaders(vk_device& device) {
         ggml_vk_create_pipeline(device, device->pipeline_rope_vision_f16, "rope_vision_f16", rope_vision_f16_len, rope_vision_f16_data, "main", 4, sizeof(vk_op_rope_push_constants), {1, 512, 1}, {}, 1);
     }
 
-    ggml_vk_create_pipeline(device, device->pipeline_argsort_f32, "argsort_f32", argsort_f32_len, argsort_f32_data, "main", 2, sizeof(vk_op_argsort_push_constants), {1024, 1, 1}, {}, 1);
+    for (uint32_t i = 0; i < num_argsort_pipelines; ++i) {
+        ggml_vk_create_pipeline(device, device->pipeline_argsort_f32[i], "argsort_f32_"+std::to_string(i), argsort_f32_len, argsort_f32_data, "main", 2, sizeof(vk_op_argsort_push_constants), {1u<<i, 1, 1}, {1u<<i, i}, 1, true);
+    }
 
     ggml_vk_create_pipeline(device, device->pipeline_argmax_f32, "argmax_f32", argmax_f32_len, argmax_f32_data, "main", 2, sizeof(vk_op_push_constants), {1, 1, 1}, { device->subgroup_size }, 1);
 
@@ -7160,7 +7164,8 @@ static vk_pipeline ggml_vk_op_get_pipeline(ggml_backend_vk_context * ctx, const
         }
     case GGML_OP_ARGSORT:
         if (src0->type == GGML_TYPE_F32 && dst->type == GGML_TYPE_I32) {
-            return ctx->device->pipeline_argsort_f32;
+            uint32_t idx = (uint32_t)ceilf(log2f(float(dst->ne[0])));
+            return ctx->device->pipeline_argsort_f32[idx];
         }
         return nullptr;
     case GGML_OP_SUM:
@@ -8485,16 +8490,8 @@ static void ggml_vk_argsort(ggml_backend_vk_context * ctx, vk_context& subctx, c
 
     uint32_t ncols = src0->ne[0];
 
-    uint32_t ncols_pad = 1;
-    while (ncols_pad < ncols) {
-        ncols_pad *= 2;
-    }
-
-    GGML_ASSERT(ncols_pad <= 1024);
-
     ggml_vk_op_f32<vk_op_argsort_push_constants>(ctx, subctx, src0, nullptr, nullptr, dst, GGML_OP_ARGSORT, {
         ncols,
-        ncols_pad,
         op_params[0],
     }, dryrun);
 }
@@ -11367,6 +11364,8 @@ static bool ggml_backend_vk_device_supports_op(ggml_backend_dev_t dev, const ggm
         case GGML_OP_OPT_STEP_ADAMW:
         case GGML_OP_OPT_STEP_SGD:
             return op->src[0]->type == GGML_TYPE_F32;
+        case GGML_OP_ARGSORT:
+            return op->ne[0] <= max_argsort_cols;
         case GGML_OP_UPSCALE:
         case GGML_OP_ACC:
         case GGML_OP_CONCAT:
@@ -11376,7 +11375,6 @@ static bool ggml_backend_vk_device_supports_op(ggml_backend_dev_t dev, const ggm
         case GGML_OP_DIAG_MASK_INF:
         case GGML_OP_SOFT_MAX:
         case GGML_OP_SOFT_MAX_BACK:
-        case GGML_OP_ARGSORT:
         case GGML_OP_SUM:
         case GGML_OP_SUM_ROWS:
         case GGML_OP_ARGMAX:

filename: ggml/src/ggml-vulkan/vulkan-shaders/argsort.comp
patch: @@ -1,69 +1,79 @@
 #version 450
+#extension GL_EXT_control_flow_attributes : enable
 
 #include "types.comp"
 
-#define BLOCK_SIZE 1024
+layout(constant_id = 0) const int BLOCK_SIZE = 1024;
+layout(constant_id = 1) const int BLOCK_SIZE_LOG2 = 10;
 #define ASC 0
 
-layout(local_size_x = BLOCK_SIZE, local_size_y = 1, local_size_z = 1) in;
+layout(local_size_x_id = 0, local_size_y = 1, local_size_z = 1) in;
 
 layout (binding = 0) readonly buffer A {A_TYPE data_a[];};
 layout (binding = 1)          buffer D {int data_d[];};
 
 layout (push_constant) uniform parameter {
     uint ncols;
-    uint ncols_pad;
     uint order;
 } p;
 
 shared int dst_row[BLOCK_SIZE];
+shared A_TYPE a_sh[BLOCK_SIZE];
 
 void swap(uint idx0, uint idx1) {
     int tmp = dst_row[idx0];
     dst_row[idx0] = dst_row[idx1];
     dst_row[idx1] = tmp;
 }
 
-void main() {
+void argsort(bool needs_bounds_check) {
     // bitonic sort
     const int col = int(gl_LocalInvocationID.x);
     const uint row = gl_WorkGroupID.y;
 
     const uint row_offset = row * p.ncols;
 
     // initialize indices
-    if (col < p.ncols_pad) {
-        dst_row[col] = col;
-    }
+    dst_row[col] = col;
+    a_sh[col] = data_a[row_offset + col];
     barrier();
 
-    for (uint k = 2; k <= p.ncols_pad; k *= 2) {
-        for (uint j = k / 2; j > 0; j /= 2) {
-            const uint ixj = col ^ j;
-            if (col < p.ncols_pad && ixj > col) {
-                if ((col & k) == 0) {
-                    if (dst_row[col] >= p.ncols ||
-                        (dst_row[ixj] < p.ncols && (p.order == ASC ?
-                            data_a[row_offset + dst_row[col]] > data_a[row_offset + dst_row[ixj]] :
-                            data_a[row_offset + dst_row[col]] < data_a[row_offset + dst_row[ixj]]))
-                    ) {
-                        swap(col, ixj);
-                    }
-                } else {
-                    if (dst_row[ixj] >= p.ncols ||
-                        (dst_row[col] < p.ncols && (p.order == ASC ?
-                            data_a[row_offset + dst_row[col]] < data_a[row_offset + dst_row[ixj]] :
-                            data_a[row_offset + dst_row[col]] > data_a[row_offset + dst_row[ixj]]))
-                    ) {
-                        swap(col, ixj);
-                    }
-                }
+    uint num_outer_loop_iters = BLOCK_SIZE_LOG2;
+    [[unroll]] for (uint k = 2, outer_idx = 0; outer_idx < num_outer_loop_iters; k *= 2, outer_idx++) {
+        uint num_inner_loop_iters = outer_idx + 1;
+        [[unroll]] for (uint j = k / 2, inner_idx = 0; inner_idx < num_inner_loop_iters; j /= 2, inner_idx++) {
+            const int ixj = int(col ^ j);
+
+            int idx_0 = (col & k) == 0 ? col : ixj;
+            int idx_1 = (col & k) == 0 ? ixj : col;
+
+            int sh_idx_0 = dst_row[idx_0];
+            int sh_idx_1 = dst_row[idx_1];
+            bool idx_0_oob = needs_bounds_check ? sh_idx_0 >= p.ncols : false;
+            bool idx_1_oob = needs_bounds_check ? sh_idx_1 >= p.ncols : false;
+
+            if ((idx_0_oob ||
+                (!idx_1_oob && a_sh[sh_idx_0] > a_sh[sh_idx_1])) && (ixj > col)) {
+                swap(idx_0, idx_1);
             }
+
             barrier();
         }
     }
 
     if (col < p.ncols) {
-        data_d[row_offset + col] = dst_row[col];
+        if (p.order == ASC) {
+            data_d[row_offset + col] = dst_row[col];
+        } else {
+            data_d[row_offset + p.ncols - col - 1] = dst_row[col];
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+void main() {
+    if (p.ncols == BLOCK_SIZE) {
+        argsort(false);
+    } else {
+        argsort(true);
     }
 }

filename: tests/test-backend-ops.cpp
patch: @@ -6028,6 +6028,7 @@ static std::vector<std::unique_ptr<test_case>> make_test_cases_eval() {
         test_cases.emplace_back(new test_argsort(GGML_TYPE_F32, {8, 1, 1, 1}, order));
         test_cases.emplace_back(new test_argsort(GGML_TYPE_F32, {16, 10, 10, 10}, order));
         test_cases.emplace_back(new test_argsort(GGML_TYPE_F32, {60, 10, 10, 10}, order)); // qwen
+        test_cases.emplace_back(new test_argsort(GGML_TYPE_F32, {1024, 1, 1, 1}, order));
     }
 
     for (ggml_scale_mode mode : {GGML_SCALE_MODE_NEAREST, GGML_SCALE_MODE_BILINEAR}) {