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jeremylongshore

vastai-performance-tuning

@jeremylongshore/vastai-performance-tuning
jeremylongshore
1,761
231 forks
Updated 3/31/2026
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Optimize Vast.ai GPU instance selection, startup time, and training throughput. Use when optimizing instance selection, reducing startup latency, or maximizing GPU utilization on rented hardware. Trigger with phrases like "vastai performance", "optimize vastai", "vastai slow", "vastai gpu utilization", "vastai throughput".

Installation

$npx agent-skills-cli install @jeremylongshore/vastai-performance-tuning
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Details

Pathplugins/saas-packs/vastai-pack/skills/vastai-performance-tuning/SKILL.md
Branchmain
Scoped Name@jeremylongshore/vastai-performance-tuning

Usage

After installing, this skill will be available to your AI coding assistant.

Verify installation:

npx agent-skills-cli list

Skill Instructions


name: vastai-performance-tuning description: | Optimize Vast.ai GPU instance selection, startup time, and training throughput. Use when optimizing instance selection, reducing startup latency, or maximizing GPU utilization on rented hardware. Trigger with phrases like "vastai performance", "optimize vastai", "vastai slow", "vastai gpu utilization", "vastai throughput". allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Bash(vastai:), Bash(ssh:) version: 1.0.0 license: MIT author: Jeremy Longshore jeremy@intentsolutions.io compatible-with: claude-code, codex, openclaw tags: [saas, vast-ai, api, performance]


Vast.ai Performance Tuning

Overview

Optimize GPU instance selection, startup time, and training throughput on Vast.ai. Key levers: Docker image caching, GPU selection by dlperf score, data pipeline optimization, and multi-GPU scaling.

Prerequisites

  • Vast.ai account with active or planned instances
  • Understanding of GPU compute bottlenecks
  • Profiling tools (nvidia-smi, torch.profiler)

Instructions

Step 1: Optimize Instance Selection by Performance

# Sort by dlperf (deep learning performance benchmark) instead of price
vastai search offers 'num_gpus=1 gpu_ram>=24 reliability>0.95' \
  --order 'dlperf-' --limit 10

# The dlperf field measures actual GPU compute throughput
# Higher dlperf = faster training even at same GPU model
# Variance within same GPU model can be 20-30%
def select_by_performance_per_dollar(offers):
    """Select the offer with best performance per dollar."""
    for o in offers:
        o["perf_per_dollar"] = o.get("dlperf", 0) / max(o["dph_total"], 0.01)
    return max(offers, key=lambda o: o["perf_per_dollar"])

Step 2: Reduce Instance Startup Time

# Use smaller, pre-cached Docker images
# FAST: nvidia/cuda:12.1.1-runtime-ubuntu22.04 (~2GB, widely cached)
# MEDIUM: pytorch/pytorch:2.2.0-cuda12.1-cudnn8-runtime (~4GB)
# SLOW: custom-image:latest with pip install at build (~10GB+)

# Pre-install deps in the image, not in onstart
# BAD (slow startup):
vastai create instance $ID --image pytorch/pytorch:latest \
  --onstart-cmd "pip install transformers datasets wandb"

# GOOD (fast startup):
# Build custom image with all deps pre-installed

Step 3: Data Pipeline Optimization

# Profile GPU utilization on the instance
# SSH into instance and run:
"""
watch -n 1 nvidia-smi  # Check if GPU util is <80% → data bottleneck

# Common fixes for low GPU utilization:
# 1. Increase DataLoader num_workers
# 2. Use pin_memory=True
# 3. Pre-fetch data to local SSD (not NFS)
# 4. Use WebDataset or FFCV for streaming datasets
"""

# Optimize PyTorch DataLoader
from torch.utils.data import DataLoader

loader = DataLoader(
    dataset,
    batch_size=32,
    num_workers=4,       # Match CPU cores on instance
    pin_memory=True,     # Faster GPU transfer
    prefetch_factor=2,   # Pre-load 2 batches per worker
    persistent_workers=True,  # Don't respawn workers each epoch
)

Step 4: GPU Memory Optimization

# Check available VRAM before selecting batch size
import torch

def optimal_batch_size(model, sample_input, gpu_memory_gb):
    """Binary search for largest batch size that fits in VRAM."""
    lo, hi, best = 1, 512, 1
    while lo <= hi:
        mid = (lo + hi) // 2
        try:
            torch.cuda.empty_cache()
            batch = sample_input.repeat(mid, *([1] * (sample_input.dim() - 1)))
            _ = model(batch.cuda())
            best = mid
            lo = mid + 1
        except torch.cuda.OutOfMemoryError:
            hi = mid - 1
        torch.cuda.empty_cache()
    return best

Step 5: Multi-GPU Scaling

# Search for multi-GPU offers (NVLink preferred for training)
vastai search offers 'num_gpus>=4 gpu_name=A100 total_flops>=100' \
  --order 'dph_total' --limit 5

# Use torchrun for distributed training
ssh -p $PORT root@$HOST "torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 train.py --batch-size 128"

GPU Performance Reference

GPUVRAMFP16 TFLOPSTypical $/hrBest For
RTX 409024GB82.6$0.15-0.30Fine-tuning, inference
A100 40GB40GB77.97$0.80-1.50Training medium models
A100 80GB80GB77.97$1.00-2.00Training large models
H100 SXM80GB267$2.50-4.00High-throughput training

Output

  • Performance-per-dollar offer selection
  • Optimized Docker image for fast startup
  • Data pipeline tuning (DataLoader, pin_memory, workers)
  • GPU memory optimization with auto batch sizing
  • Multi-GPU scaling with torchrun

Error Handling

ErrorCauseSolution
Low GPU utilization (<50%)Data pipeline bottleneckIncrease num_workers, use pin_memory
OOM during trainingBatch size too largeUse optimal_batch_size() or gradient accumulation
Slow instance startupLarge Docker imagePre-install deps in image, not onstart
Poor multi-GPU scalingCommunication bottleneckUse NVLink-connected GPUs, reduce sync frequency

Resources

Next Steps

For cost optimization, see vastai-cost-tuning.

Examples

Profile first: SSH into instance, run watch nvidia-smi during training. If GPU-Util < 80%, the bottleneck is data loading, not compute.

Best value GPU: Use perf_per_dollar scoring to find hosts where the same GPU model runs faster due to better cooling or fewer co-tenants.

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