Model reference · open weights
PixArt-LCM-XL-2-1024-MS is an open-weight image model from PixArt-alpha. PixArt-LCM-XL-2-1024-MS (FP32) weighs 10.9 GB; the smallest configuration that runs it is RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB.
Summary of the PixArt-alpha/PixArt-LCM-XL-2-1024-MS model card, 2026-10-01
What it is
| Released by | PixArt-alpha |
|---|---|
| Released | 2023-11-29 |
| Parameters | 612M |
| VRAM | 10.9 GB for the weights |
What it runs on
| Card | One image | Memory |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 12 GB | does not fit | 11.6 GB |
| RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB | tight (encoders offloaded) | 15.4 GB |
| RTX 3090 24 GB | fits | 23.4 GB |
| RTX 4090 24 GB | fits | 23.4 GB |
| RTX 5090 32 GB | fits | 31.0 GB |
| L40S 48 GB | fits | 44.0 GB |
| A100 80 GB | fits | 78.2 GB |
| H100 80 GB | fits | 78.1 GB |
| RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GB | fits | 93.8 GB |
| DGX Spark (GB10) 128 GB unified | fits | 107 GB |
| H200 141 GB | fits | 138 GB |
| B200 180 GB | fits | 176 GB |
From the model card
Following LCM LoRA, we illustrative of the generation speed we achieve on various computers. Let us stress again how liberating it is to explore image generation so easily with PixArt-LCM.
| Hardware | PixArt-LCM (4 steps) | SDXL LoRA LCM (4 steps) | PixArt standard (14 steps) | SDXL standard (25 steps) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T4 (Google Colab Free Tier) | 3.3s | 8.4s | 16.0s | 26.5s |
| A100 (80 GB) | 0.51s | 1.2s | 2.2s | 3.8s |
| V100 (32 GB) | 0.8s | 1.2s | 5.5s | 7.7s |
These tests were run with a batch size of 1 in all cases.
For cards with a lot of capacity, such as A100, performance increases significantly when generating multiple images at once, which is usually the case for production workloads.
Pixart-α consists of pure transformer blocks for latent diffusion: It can directly generate 1024px images from text prompts within a single sampling process.
LCMs is a diffusion distillation method which predict PF-ODE's solution directly in latent space, achieving super fast inference with few steps.
Source code of PixArt-LCM is available at https://github.com/PixArt-alpha/PixArt-alpha.
For research purposes, we recommend our generative-models Github repository (https://github.com/PixArt-alpha/PixArt-alpha),
which is more suitable for developing both training and inference designs.
Hugging Face provides free Pixart-LCM inference.
Make sure to upgrade diffusers to >= 0.23.0:
pip install -U diffusers --upgrade
In addition make sure to install transformers, safetensors, sentencepiece, and accelerate:
pip install transformers accelerate safetensors sentencepiece
To just use the base model, you can run:
import torch
from diffusers import PixArtAlphaPipeline
# only 1024-MS version is supported for now
pipe = PixArtAlphaPipeline.from_pretrained("PixArt-alpha/PixArt-LCM-XL-2-1024-MS", torch_dtype=torch.float16, use_safetensors=True)
# Enable memory optimizations.
pipe.enable_model_cpu_offload()
prompt = "A small cactus with a happy face in the Sahara desert."
image = pipe(prompt, guidance_scale=0., num_inference_steps=4).images[0]
When using torch >= 2.0, you can improve the inference speed by 20-30% with torch.compile. Simple wrap the unet with torch compile before running the pipeline:
pipe.transformer = torch.compile(pipe.transformer, mode="reduce-overhead", fullgraph=True)
If you are limited by GPU VRAM, you can enable cpu offloading by calling pipe.enable_model_cpu_offload
instead of .to("cuda"):
- pipe.to("cuda")
+ pipe.enable_model_cpu_offload()
The diffusers use here is totally the same as the base-model PixArt-α.
For more information on how to use Pixart-α with diffusers, please have a look at the Pixart-α Docs.
The model is intended for research purposes only. Possible research areas and tasks include
Generation of artworks and use in design and other artistic processes.
Applications in educational or creative tools.
Research on generative models.
Safe deployment of models which have the potential to generate harmful content.
Probing and understanding the limitations and biases of generative models.
Excluded uses are described below.
The model was not trained to be factual or true representations of people or events, and therefore using the model to generate such content is out-of-scope for the abilities of this model.
While the capabilities of image generation models are impressive, they can also reinforce or exacerbate social biases.
Quoted from the model card on Hugging Face. The full card is behind the Hugging Face link above.
Running it yourself
Rent a machine by the hour. Runs as it is with diffusers, on the machine, in Python.
# on your rented machine: pip install diffusers transformers accelerate
import torch
from diffusers import DiffusionPipeline
pipe = DiffusionPipeline.from_pretrained("PixArt-alpha/PixArt-LCM-XL-2-1024-MS", torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16).to("cuda")
image = pipe(prompt="a red bicycle on a cobbled street").images[0]
image.save("/workspace/out.png")