waifu2x

Waifu2x is a well-known image super-resolution neural network for anime-style arts.

Link:

• (stable) https://github.com/AmusementClub/vs-mlrt/releases/download/model-20211209/waifu2x_v3.7z

Models

Includes all known publicly available waifu2x models:

• anime_style_art: requires pre-scaled input for the scaled2.0x variant
  • noise1 noise2 noise3 scale2.0x
• anime_style_art_rgb: requires pre-scaled input for the scale2.0x variant
  • noise0 noise1 noise2 noise3 scale2.0x
• photo: requires pre-scaled input for the scale2.0x variant
  • noise0 noise1 noise2 noise3 scale2.0x
• ukbench: requires pre-scaled input
  • scale2.0x
• upconv_7_anime_style_art_rgb
  • scale2.0x noise3_scale2.0x noise2_scale2.0x noise1_scale2.0x noise0_scale2.0x
• upconv_7_photo
  • scale2.0x noise0_scale2.0x noise1_scale2.0x noise2_scale2.0x noise3_scale2.0x
• cunet: tile size (block_w and block_h) must be multiples of 4.
  • noise0 noise1 noise2 noise3
  • scale2.0x
  • noise0_scale2.0x noise1_scale2.0x noise2_scale2.0x noise3_scale2.0x
• upresnet10
  • scale2.0x
  • noise0_scale2.0x noise1_scale2.0x noise2_scale2.0x noise3_scale2.0x

vsmlrt.py wrapper Usage

In order to simplify usage, we provided a Python wrapper module vsmlrt that provides full functionality of waifu2x caffe but with a more Pythonic interface:

from vsmlrt import Waifu2x, Waifu2xModel, Backend

src = core.std.BlankClip(format=vs.RGBS)

# backend could be:
#  - CPU Backend.OV_CPU(): the recommended CPU backend; generally faster than ORT-CPU.
#  - CPU Backend.ORT_CPU(num_streams=1, verbosity=2): vs-ort cpu backend.
#  - GPU Backend.ORT_CUDA(device_id=0, cudnn_benchmark=True, num_streams=1, verbosity=2)
#     - use device_id to select device
#     - set cudnn_benchmark=False to reduce script reload latency when debugging, but with slight throughput performance penalty.
#  - GPU Backend.TRT(fp16=True, device_id=0, num_streams=1): TensorRT runtime, the fastest NV GPU runtime.
flt = Waifu2x(src, noise=-1, scale=2, model=Waifu2xModel.upconv_7_anime_style_art_rgb, backend=Backend.ORT_CUDA())

Raw Model Usage

This section is mostly for reference purposes as the suggested way is to use the vsmlrt.py.

src = core.std.BlankClip(width=1920, height=1080, format=vs.RGBS)
flt = core.ov.Model(src, "upconv_7_anime_style_art_rgb_scale2.0x.onnx")

anime_style_art, anime_style_art_rgb, photo, ukbench models do not include builtin upscaling. Therefore, you need to upscale 2x using Catmull-Rom (bicubic(b=0, c=0.5)) before feeding the image to the models:

src = core.std.BlankClip(width=1920, height=1080, format=vs.RGBS)
flt = core.ov.Model(src.fmtc.resample(scale=2, kernel="bicubic", a1=0, a2=0.5), "anime_style_art_rgb_scale2.0x.onnx")

Notes

• cunet networks work best when the tile size (block_w/block_h) is in range 60 - 150 and multiples of 4.

Benchmarking

Measurements: FPS / Device Memory (GB)

Device memory:

• CPU: private memory including VapourSynth
• GPU: device memory including context

Tesla V100

Software: VapourSynth R57, Windows Server 2019, Graphics Driver 511.23

Input size: 1920x1080

Backends

1. vs-mlrt v6
2. VapourSynth-Waifu2x-caffe r14
3. vapoursynth-waifu2x-ncnn-vulkan r4, Graphics Driver 471.68

Performance

FP32

Model	[1] ort-cuda	[1] trt	[1] trt (2 streams)	[2] caffe (540p patch)	[3] vulkan (540p patch)
upconv7	5.98 / 5065	6.60 / 5033	8.43 / 9253	1.63 / 3248	1.67 / 11197
upresnet10	4.36 / 5061	N/A	N/A	1.54 / 7232	N/A
cunet	2.58 / 9155	N/A	N/A	1.11 / 11657	0.53 / 15705

FP16

Model	[1] ort-cuda	[1] trt	[1] trt (2 streams)	[3] vulkan
upconv7	10.4 / 5189	13.8 / 3041	26.2 / 5253	3.97 / 21369
upresnet10	6.43 / 5059	N/A	N/A	N/A
cunet	4.10 / 9535	N/A	N/A	0.86 / 29848

Tesla A10

Software: VapourSynth R57, Windows Server 2019, Graphics Driver 511.23, lock the GPU clocks at max frequency.

Input size: 1920x1080

Backends

1. vs-mlrt v6
2. vapoursynth-waifu2x-ncnn-vulkan r4, Graphics Driver 471.68

Performance

FP32

Model	[1] ort-cuda	[1] trt	[1] trt (2 streams)	[2] vulkan (540p patch)
upconv7	6.94 / 9765	7.83 / 5511	8.61 / 9731	1.63 / 10892
upresnet10	3.90 / 5665	N/A	N/A	N/A
cunet	2.20 / 18469	N/A	N/A	0.53 / 15397

FP16

Model	[1] ort-cuda	[1] trt	[1] trt (2 streams)	[2] vulkan
upconv7	9.66 / 6049	16.1 / 3501	19.9 / 5701	3.03 / 21075
upresnet10	6.53 / 5663	N/A	N/A	N/A
cunet	3.26 / 10017	N/A	N/A	0.78 / 8011 (540p patch)

Icelake Server

Hardware: Xeon Icelake Server 32C64T @2.90 GHz

Software: VapourSynth R57, Windows Server 2019

Input size: 1920x1080

Backends

1. vs-mlrt v6
2. VapourSynth-Waifu2x-w2xc r8

Performance

FP32

Model	[1] ov-cpu	[2] w2xc
upconv7	1.22 / 18750	N/A
upresnet10	1.40 / 18278	N/A
cunet	0.65 / 22447	N/A
anime rgb	0.69 / 34619	0.26 / 7895

EPYC Milan

Hardware: EPYC Milan 32C64T @2.55 GHz

Software: VapourSynth R57, Windows Server 2019

Input size: 1920x1080

Backends

1. vs-mlrt v6
2. VapourSynth-Waifu2x-w2xc r8

Performance

FP32

Model	[1] ov-cpu	[2] w2xc
upconv7	0.36 / 19583	N/A
upresnet10	0.35 / 18694	N/A
cunet	0.20 / 21644	N/A
anime rgb	0.20 / 34619	0.28 / 5398