Strata 0.2.5: one installer, DeepSeek in the app, a faster DeepSeek, and a long list of fixes

The app and the Terminal are 0.2.5. Every engine package (Qwen and DeepSeek) and the Control are 0.1.50, rebuilt for this release.

What is new

• One installer per system. Windows: Strata-0.2.5-windows-x64-setup.exe. Linux: Strata-0.2.5-linux-x86_64.AppImage. Mac: Strata-0.2.5-macos-arm64.dmg. The Windows and Linux files no longer carry an engine. On first start the app shows the engine for your graphics card with its size and one Download button, with progress and resume. If you downloaded the engine file yourself, choose "I already have the file" and it installs offline. The Mac file keeps its small Metal engine inside.
• DeepSeek V4.1-Flash in the app. The model picker lists the three official sizes, with a plain note on size, speed and disk that warns and never blocks. The context is fixed at 8K and there is no calibration step.
• A Speed choice for DeepSeek: Faster or Full quality. Faster uses 5 of the model's 6 experts per word, a small quality change that is usually not noticeable. It is the default on a PC with 16 GB of graphics memory or less and on PCs whose graphics share the computer's memory (Strix Halo). In the Terminal: --speed, --full-quality or --experts N. It needs DeepSeek engine 0.1.50 or newer; an older engine gets no Speed step and no flag. On an RTX 5070, Faster mode decoded code and agent runs 16% faster. On a Strix Halo it was 11 to 13% faster to decode and 5 to 7% faster on prompts. On an MI325X the quality checks showed no difference from Full quality.

DeepSeek is faster on many PCs

• The RAM store can hold every expert. It used to stop at 48 GB. Where the free RAM holds all routed experts, it now keeps all of them (one R9700 with 251 GB of RAM: 12.6 to 21.4 tokens/s on the 2.00 set). It still leaves 12 GB free.
• The CPU starts on the experts it already has while the rest are read from the SSD. +13.5% on an RTX 5070 and +11 to 15% on an RTX 3060 PC.
• Fewer GPU launches per layer. Decode +13% on one test PC in 5 of 5 pairs (same output every run), +2.4% on one R9700 and +4.5% on four.
• Prompt chunk sizes follow what the PC holds. NVIDIA cards under 16 GB now read prompts in chunks of 4096 instead of 8192: agent decode +2%, an agent turn takes the same time, a cold 8K prompt is 9% slower. AMD cards and cards with 16 GB or more keep 8192. Four R9700 cards that hold most experts use 1024.
• One card on a PC with several cards no longer reads prompts in small chunks. It used chunks of 1024 and was up to 2 times slower on long prompts (one R9700: 8K prompt 205 to 431 tokens/s).
• Strix Halo. The prompt kernels use the matrix units on gfx1151: prompts 22% faster at 4K and 29% at 8K, same answers (KL 0.10204 against 0.10203). The RAM store is sized again after the weights are on the GPU, so the PC keeps 12 GB free and 32K and 64K contexts no longer run out of memory on the new AMD driver.
• The same prompt always takes the same path. The engine now picks the prompt path from the prompt's length (96 tokens and more go through the chunked pass). The old timing guess changed answers between runs. Once the model is ready, the engine also warms up the chunked pass in the background. If a few seconds pass before your first prompt, that prompt no longer pays the one-time setup (about 3.6 s on an R9700).
• Intel server CPUs (Sapphire Rapids and newer) read the i-quant tables with a gather, which takes 25 to 47% less time on the expert rows we timed (gate and up of one expert, 1 to 4 tokens, on a Xeon 8468; identical output). That is a microbenchmark, not an end-to-end speed. On the AVX-512 CPUs we tested (Zen 4 and Sapphire Rapids), the DeepSeek IQ1_M rows used for prompts are 9% faster, with identical output.
• Qwen engine: on one CUDA GPU with all experts in RAM, the engine now tries the asynchronous tier itself, measures it for 64 windows and keeps it only if it is not more than 2% slower.

Fixes in the Terminal

• An NVIDIA driver from 528 to 579 runs the CUDA 12 engine by itself and says so (#3843). A card taken out of the PC no longer decides the engine (#3892). RTX 40 cards (sm_89) take the sm_86 package.
• A big model gets a longer start wait by itself: 10 minutes plus about 8 s per GB above 40 GB, at most 30 (#3949, #3459).
• strata update says "the engine was NOT updated" when it was not (#3653), runs the new engine's test start with a short context (#3842) and keeps the CUDA build that runs on your PC (#3835). The launch summary names the engine log (#3656).
• Setup: a Mac with an Intel Python is still an Apple Silicon Mac (#3894); the --kv fp16 flag from the Docker guide works (#3785); a download that gets no data for two minutes says so (#3567); cmake and Visual Studio 2022 are checked in the right order with a plain stop (#3822, #3566); a shared Windows/Linux .venv installs again (#3634).
• Deleting a model removes the files Strata downloaded, even in another models folder (#3716). A file set with the layout of a tested build is used with a notice (#3651, #3777).
• AMD cards on Windows show their memory in setup (#3727, PR #3798 by chicco83). strata connect scales the compaction point with the server's context (PR #3852 by demetree).
• strata launch at 80 columns keeps the verdict column. The DeepSeek engine upgrade lines also show on the setup path.

Fixes in the app

• A finished app update is no longer shown as "Interrupted operation"; the update writes its steps to the log and warns if the app came back as the old version.
• Copy response and Copy message say Copied or say why not (#3731); a pasted screenshot is read (#3748); typed line breaks and decimals in the sampling fields work (#3720, #3736); PDFs go into the chat folder (#3838); reopening a chat restores its folder (#3754); downloaded models appear in the chat picker (#3814); one newline inside a paragraph is a soft break (#3818).
• The monitor no longer starts a cold PowerShell every 3 seconds (#3939), and shows the memory and load of AMD and Intel cards on Windows (#3727, #3836). With All GPUs, a card that cannot report a value is left out and the one that can is named.
• The folder picker falls back to typing the path when security software closes it (#3831). The Models page shows a neutral placeholder until the engine answers (#3740) and counts the chosen context in the memory estimate (#3832).
• 69 interface strings that had no key now exist in all eight languages (#3479, #3825). Sizes are decimal MB everywhere.
• Known issue: uninstalling Strata on Windows right after using it can leave its program folder behind. Close Strata first, then uninstall.

Updating

• App: the in-app updater installs the new installer (same file as the download). Your engine stays; the first-run card appears only when there is none.
• Terminal: run strata update. It fetches Control 0.1.50 and the engines you use.
• DeepSeek engine: updates itself on the next strata launch (0.1.49.2 to 0.1.50), as in 0.2.4.2.
• Intel Arc on Linux (SYCL): needs Ubuntu 24.04 or newer (glibc 2.38).

Downloads

New installers (3), the Control packages (3), 13 engine packages and 3 DeepSeek engine packages, all at 0.1.50, plus strata-feed.json with its signature, latest.json, install-manifest.txt, install.sh, install.ps1 and SHA256SUMS.txt. The old per-GPU installers are not attached again.

Strata is free and open source. If it runs well on your PC, a coffee keeps the work on it going: