SD Forge WebUI Enhancements and Forge’s New Path

The sd-webui developers have announced major performance improvements in the upstream development branch, resolving many previous issues. Users are advised to switch back to this branch for a smoother experience.

Meanwhile, Forge will become an experimental repository, testing features like Gradio 4 and local GPU memory management.

These updates will introduce new tabs but may break most extensions, so users in stable environments should revert to the upstream webui. Forge users should back up their files and revert to the last stable commit if updated unknowingly.

The developer’s message is essentially a set of important updates and recommendations for users of the sd-webui and Forge repositories. Here’s a breakdown of what they’re saying:

1. Performance Improvements in Upstream sd-webui:
   • The development branch of the upstream sd-webui has been updated with significant performance enhancements, resolving many previous bottlenecks.
   • Users are recommended to switch back to the upstream webui (either directly use the development branch or wait until it is merged into the main branch).
2. Forge Features and Ecosystem Compatibility:
   • Some features in Forge, like unet-patcher and modern memory management, are deemed too resource-intensive for the current webui ecosystem.
   • As a result, Forge will become an experimental repository for testing features that are costly to integrate into the main webui.
3. Future of Forge:
   • Forge will experiment with Gradio 4 and implement a local GPU version of Huggingface’s zero GPU memory management.
   • This new version will introduce a “Forge Space” tab (utilizing Gradio 4 SDK’s @spaces.GPU namespace) and a “LLM” tab.
4. Impact on Extensions:
   • The upcoming updates in Forge are likely to break most extensions.
   • Users who rely on stable production environments are advised to switch back to the upstream webui for daily use.
5. Testing and Feedback:
   • A small group of users is invited to stay with Forge to test Gradio 4, which is crucial for upstream considerations, especially in relation to new features like LLM interface, streaming system, image editors, and zero-GPU computation management.
6. Backup and Precaution:
   • Users are strongly encouraged to backup their files immediately.
   • If users have accidentally updated Forge without knowing about this announcement, they should revert to the last commit before the announcement, which is identified by the commit hash.

In summary, the developer is informing users about significant updates and changes, urging most users to switch back to the upstream sd-webui for stability, and inviting a small group to participate in experimental testing of new features in Forge.

Meanwhile SD Forge WebUI has been removed from Pinokio repositary, meanwhile it is available on Lykos Stability Matrix.