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TR-2026-0022Technical reportPeer review: Not peer reviewedEvidence: ExperimentalStatus: Released

True CUDA text-to-video with live UMT5 encode, dependency-minimal (no cuBLAS)

Ran Tao (Octoryn Research)

This is not peer-reviewed. Treat it as a working document, not a validated result.

Abstract

A self-contained CUDA Wan2.1 text-to-video pipeline performs a live UMT5 text encode (no prompt embeddings injected from the reference), denoises with classifier-free guidance over the Wan DiT, and decodes through the 3D-VAE. Against a diffusers reference with matched seed and schedule, early-step latents and output frames reach cosine 1.0 with frame PSNR ~89.8 dB, using a dependency-minimal build that links the CUDA runtime only (no cuBLAS). Scope: a correctness/oracle-parity validation on one consumer-class NVIDIA GPU run — not a generation-quality, throughput, or benchmark-scale result.

1. Contribution

Claimed. A self-contained CUDA text-to-video pipeline (Wan2.1) that performs a live UMT5 text encode — with nothing injected from the reference (no pre-computed prompt embeddings) — then denoises with classifier-free guidance over the Wan DiT and decodes through the 3D-VAE. Against the diffusers reference with matched seed and schedule, the early-step (step 0-3) latents and the output frames reach cosine 1.0 at frame PSNR ~89.8 dB. End-to-end wall time is ~92.5 s on a consumer-class NVIDIA GPU, and the build is dependency-minimal: a linkage check shows the CUDA runtime only, no cuBLAS. The altitude is correctness validation plus an engineering port, not a novel algorithm: it mirrors an existing AMD/ROCm standalone pipeline onto CUDA and pins numeric parity against diffusers.

NOT claimed. This does not establish generation quality (cosine/PSNR vs a reference are numeric-parity metrics, not perceptual or human-preference quality). It does not claim throughput or speed competitiveness as a benchmark — the ~92.5 s wall is a single end-to-end run, not a profiled, multi-trial throughput figure. It does not claim parity at higher resolution, longer clips, other Wan variants, other quantization, or on other GPU architectures. The speed contrast with an AMD/ROCm path (~92.5 s vs ~1130 s) is across different hardware and is reported as context, not as a controlled speedup.

2. Methods

FieldValue
HardwareConsumer-class NVIDIA GPU, 8 GB class
Stack / minimal-dependency buildCUDA toolchain; linkage check shows CUDA runtime only (no cuBLAS/cuDNN/cuTLASS)
Oracle / baselinediffusers reference pipeline (matched seed/schedule); version not recorded in source notes
ProcedureLive UMT5 encode (no injected prompt embeddings) -> CFG denoise over Wan DiT -> 3D-VAE decode, compared to diffusers reference
Precisionnot recorded in source notes
Metric + gatecosine similarity and PSNR of latents/frames vs diffusers; gate not recorded in source notes
Stimulus / inputsSingle text-to-video generation with matched seed and schedule; prompt not recorded in source notes

3. Results

QuantityValue
Early-step (0-3) latents (cosine vs diffusers)1.0
Output frames (cosine vs diffusers)1.0
Output frames PSNR vs diffusers~89.8 dB
End-to-end wall time (NVIDIA)~92.5 s
Dependency footprintCUDA runtime only, no cuBLAS
Context: ROCm standalone wall (different HW)~1130 s

4. Threats to validity / Limitations

  • Sample size. Parity is established on what the source describes as a single end-to-end generation (early-step latents + frames). This is a correctness smoke test, not a benchmark-scale evaluation across prompts, seeds, resolutions, or clip lengths.
  • Single run, no variance. The ~92.5 s wall is one run; no repeated trials, variance, or profiling are recorded. It is a wall-clock observation, not a throughput benchmark.
  • Parity is not quality. Cosine 1.0 and PSNR ~89.8 dB measure numeric agreement with diffusers, not perceptual quality, temporal coherence, or human preference. A pipeline can match a reference numerically and still produce poor video if the reference is poor.
  • Oracle/version pins missing. The diffusers version, precision (fp16/fp32), the parity gate threshold, the prompt, the seed value, and the schedule/step count are not recorded in the source notes. Reproducibility and the strength of the cosine 1.0 / PSNR claim depend on these and cannot be fully audited here.
  • Cross-hardware contrast. The ~92.5 s vs ~1130 s comparison spans an NVIDIA/CUDA target vs an AMD/ROCm target — different silicon and backends — so it is not a controlled speedup measurement.
  • Scope. Bounded to a self-contained Wan2.1 text-to-video pipeline on the NVIDIA target; no claim for other Wan variants, quantizations, or other GPU architectures.
  • Evidence level. The source describes parity against the diffusers oracle, but the absence of recorded version/seed/gate pins (above) means the result should be read as oracle-parity-validated rather than independently re-run from a fully pinned recipe.

5. Reproducibility / Provenance

  • Build: CUDA toolchain with optimization enabled. Run command: not recorded in source notes.
  • Dependency footprint (linkage check): CUDA runtime only (no cuBLAS/cuDNN/cuTLASS).
  • Version pins (CUDA, diffusers, UMT5/Wan weights): not recorded in source notes.
  • Oracle caveat: validate the diffusers reference (seed, schedule, precision) before trusting the cosine 1.0 / PSNR ~89.8 dB parity; these pins are not captured in the source.
  • Relation: CUDA counterpart to an AMD/ROCm standalone Wan2.1 text-to-video pipeline; correctness-pinned to the same diffusers reference.

Claim boundary

The author's explicit scope — what this work does and does not establish — carried over from the Octoryn Research publishing model.

Proves

  • A self-contained CUDA Wan2.1 text-to-video pipeline with live UMT5 encode matches a diffusers reference at cosine 1.0 (early-step latents and frames) and frame PSNR ~89.8 dB, matched seed/schedule, with a CUDA-runtime-only build, on a single consumer-class NVIDIA GPU run.

Does not prove

  • Generation quality, perceptual fidelity, or temporal coherence beyond numeric parity with the diffusers reference.
  • Throughput or speed as a profiled benchmark; the single end-to-end wall time is one un-repeated run with no variance.
  • Parity at higher resolution, longer clips, other Wan variants, other quantization, or on other GPU architectures.
  • A controlled speedup vs an alternative GPU/backend path, since such a contrast spans different silicon and software stacks.

Applies when

  • Self-contained Wan2.1 text-to-video on a single consumer-class NVIDIA GPU, single-config parity vs a diffusers reference with matched seed and schedule.

Does not apply when

  • Generation-quality or throughput-benchmark claims; multi-prompt, multi-seed, or multi-resolution evaluation; other models, quantizations, or other GPU architectures.

Authors

  • Ran Tao — Investigation, Writing

Cite this

Citation

Tao, R., Octoryn Research. (2026). True CUDA text-to-video with live UMT5 encode, dependency-minimal (no cuBLAS) (TR-2026-0022). Octopus Research Institute.

BibTeX

@techreport{oritr20260022,
  title       = {True CUDA text-to-video with live UMT5 encode, dependency-minimal (no cuBLAS)},
  author      = {Tao, Ran and {Octoryn Research}},
  institution = {Octopus Research Institute},
  year        = {2026},
  note        = {Permanent ID TR-2026-0022. Not peer reviewed.}
}

Disclosures

Funding
Hardware and infrastructure provided by Octoryn / Octopus Core Pty Ltd.
Conflicts of interest
Octoryn ships commercial inference and governance tooling; findings are reported independently.