AI Playground v2.2 beta

This release introduces OpenVINO as an early preview and optional high-performance backend for chat, along with bug fixes, and additional ComfyUI worfkflows. This release provides a single installer for all supported hardware.
Intel Core Ultra 200-H (ARL-H) not yet supported.

Important

Two bugs sighted - affecting Video and Colorize Generation - fix in process, new release to come. See issue

BE SURE TO BACK UP VALUED CONTENT FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION BEFORE INSTALLING

In this release

• All features from AI Playground 2.0.4b
• OpenVINO backend early preview, using OpenVINO Gen AI, providing the most optimized inferencing solution for Intel hardware. OpenVINO when installed can be used by selecting the Gear icon, then selecting it from the LLM Backend list in the Basic tab
  NOTE this early preview does not yet have RAG implementation. This feature will be added in an upcoming release
• Text To Video Workflow. Powered by LTX Video this workflow allows you to create video clips from text prompts
• Colorize Workflow. This workflow feature allows you to colorize black and white images - (works best on people and faces)
• Max token slider added, allowing you to set Answer response tokens up to 4096 tokens
• UX improvements for Create tab providing full session history in the viewer with video player added for videos content
• UX improvements for Answer section adding model information and performance summaries in the responses

Fixes

• Image output directory moved to User Directory folder, avoiding deletion of image output when updating or uninstalling AI Playground
• Fixed ComfyUI workflow installation errors, incomplete installs, and erroneous online dependencies
• Re-enable markdown files as RAG input
• Installation timeout increased to reduce installation failures due to time-out

Sighted Bugs Since Release

• Colorize Fails on Alchemist GPUs: Intel A series GPUs (ACM) get an 4GB memory limit issue: Issue is hijack fixes are missing in our ComfyUI backend implementation - a new release with fix is soon to publish.
• LTX Video cannot complete: "Backend could not generate image" error to a required node not installing on some systems. Fix being added to AI Playground. Workaround posted here: #206 (comment)

Known Issues

• Installer may fail due to time, requiring a restart to finish.
  See Troubleshooting section of the project Readme for installation troubleshooting
• PC restart may be needed after installation of AI Playground, otherwise can result in poor performance or functionality issues
• Custom changes to ComfyUI can break the installation or repair of ComfyUI when installing AI Playground over an existing version.
  Users with custom ComfyUI set ups should backup and remove the ComfUI folder before installing a new version of AI Playground
• Users can adjust settings for image and video beyond their systems ability to produce or complete the task.
  Check for performance monitor to see if any usage is nearing your total GPU memory. If so you should decrease resolution and or frames for better performance.

Supported Hardware :

• Intel Core Ultra 200v Laptop Processors (LNL)
• Intel Core Ultra 100h Laptop Processors (MTL-H)
• Intel Arc B Series GPU Cards (BMG)
• Intel Arc A Series GPU Cards with 8GB+ Memory (ACM)

Coming Soon

• Intel Core Ultra 200h Laptop Processors (ARL-H)

AI Playground v2.0.4 beta

This is an updated release of AI Playground 2.0 alpha with updates and fixes. This release provides a single installer for all supported hardware including the latest Intel Arc B580 GPU.

BE SURE TO BACK UP VALUED CONTENT FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION BEFORE INSTALLING

In this release

• All features from AI Playground 2.0a
• CopyFace workflow added providing an image to image solution similar to FaceSwap
• DeepSeek models added to drop down model list in the Answer tab for IPEX-LLM mode
  -- deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B
  -- deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B
• Added High VRAM warning to workflows that usually are best run on systems with more than 8GB of VRAM
• Updated language translations
• By default Create is set to Standard resolution with Fast mode on, to provide the fastest initial experience for image generation
• Higher resolution options added up to 0.5 megapixel for Default Mode, Standard Resolution ( ie SD 1.5)

Fixes

• Missing language translations for parts of the UI have been added.
• Negative prompt fixed can now be applied to Default mode where appropriate - does not work in Fast mode
• Hyperlinks from Model Settings fixed
• Safe Check toggle feature added back to Settings. This fixes an issue where image generation returns black images, being censored. Turning off this feature will bypass it
• Broken FaceSwap and CopyFace installation fixed, due to a move the custom node repo being moved
• VC++ redistributable check and installation added back to the installation
• Llama.cpp default model set, matching the IPEX-LLM experience

Known Issues

• When running and installing workflows like CopyFace for the first time, the installation process may take a long time and not fully execute. A restart of AI Playground may be needed to complete the installation.
• PC restart may be needed after installation of AI Playground, otherwise can result in poor performance or functionality issues
• Performance degradation can happen after running a few different high memory models. Restarting backends through Backend Installation Manager will restore performance
• Network firewalls and protected networks can interrupt or block the installation process. Install using an open network.
• Alternate Python and Git installations on the PC may conflict with installation.
• VC++ may be detected and not installed by the installer but may be required to be installed if out of date for the hardware.

AI-Playground-v2.0 alpha preview

This release is an early alpha preview of AI Playground 2.0. This release provides a single installer for all supported hardware including the latest Intel Arc B580 GPU.

In this release

• All features from AI Playground v1.22b
• A single installation executable able to install on all currently AI Playground supported Intel Arc GPU hardware: Intel Core Ultra-H Series 1, Intel Core Ultra Series 2, Intel Arc Series A GPUs or Intel Arc Series B GPUs with 8GB+ of vRAM.
• New runtime installer to manage the online installation and restart functions of required or optional backend components
• New optional ComfyUI backend to support workflow mode for image generation
• New optional Llama.cpp backend to support GGUF file support in the Answer chatbot section
• Workflow flow modes leveraging curated ComfyUI workflows to be used in AI Playground
• Workflow synch supporting download of latest workflows from the AI Playground project
• Flux.1-Schnell workflows, leveraging either Q4 or Q8 quantization
• Line2Image workflow using SDXL and ControlNet Canny models for fast generation of images influenced by the structure of another image
• FaceSwap workflow using SDXL to control the likeness of an image based on a reference image (non commercial use only)
• Add Model tool to easy add and install LLM models using hugging face IDs
• Image resolution scale tool, to set the resolution in megapixels

Known Issues

• PC restart needed before running, otherwise can result in poor performance or functionality issues
• Performance degradation can happen after running a few different high memory models. Restarting backends through Backend Installation Manager will restore performance
• Caching issues may cause image workflow settings to be entered in defaults. If odd results are generated double check resolution and steps are correct for the model
• Network firewalls and protected networks can interrupt or block the installation process. Install using an open network.
• Alternate Python and Git installations on the PC may conflict with installation.

AI-Playground-v1.22b

AI Playground Beta v1.22v Installer. This is the November 2024 security and bug fix release of AI Playground 1.2 beta for Windows. Currently this release supports Intel Core Ultra-H (MTL-H and Intel Core Ultra 200V (LNL). Download the appropriate binaries below

Fixes for this release:

• Fix for the Hugging Face version error that causes the application to not get past the loading screen
• Version updates for 3rd party components

Features for 1.2:

• Existing features of AI Playground 1.01b PLUS
• New Theme UI - (For Intel Core Ultra 200V only)
• New LLM selector prepopulated with 3 model options for download (Phi3-mini-4k-instruct, Qwen2-1.5B-Instruct, Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.3)
• New Conversation Manager to save and store chat session
• Font Size Tool: increase or decrease the font size in the Answer section.
• New Aspect Ratio selector to more easily select the appropriate resolutions for specific aspect ratios
• Multi-Language support now adding Korean with existing support for English and Chinese for the UI
• Stable Diffusion 1.5 SafetyChecker warning for images flagged by safety checker
• Resizable Window

Known Issues & Workaround

• First Initial launch can take more than a minute to install
• Some existing installations of VC++ may not have needed DLLs. If error on load screen we suggest installing the 64bit VS C++ redist https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170
• Online installer can be interrupted by network firewalls or sleep mode. Be sure to install on an open network and set computer to not sleep during the installation
• First run of AI Chatbot in Answer may be very long or hang. Restarting fixes and issue is generally not seen again
• Generating HTML code from Answers may not render in the viewport, but do display in the console
• Systems with low vRAM (8G) can experience slower than normal generation times in HD mode (SDXL)

NOTE:
download the appropriate executable for your target hardware

AI-Playground-v1.21b

AI Playground Beta v1.21v Installer. This is the October 2024 release of AI Playground for Windows with support of the new Intel Core Ultra 200V series processors, code named Lunar Lake (LNL).

Features:

• Existing features of AI Playground 1.01b PLUS
• New Theme UI - (For Intel Core Ultra 200V only)
• New LLM selector prepopulated with 3 model options for download (Phi3-mini-4k-instruct, Qwen2-1.5B-Instruct, Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.3)
• New Conversation Manager to save and store chat session
• Font Size Tool: increase or decrease the font size in the Answer section.
• New Aspect Ratio selector to more easily select the appropriate resolutions for specific aspect ratios
• Multi-Language support now adding Korean with existing support for English and Chinese for the UI
• Stable Diffusion 1.5 SafetyChecker warning for images flagged by safety checker
• Resizable Window

Fixes and updates:

• Automated VC++ Redistributable installer for systems missing needed DLLs
• Exception handing, providing error and log for issues starting up AI Playground
• Port Selector - will automatically choose a free port, if default is used
• Notification pop-up when selecting HD mode, alerting of generation times on systems with low VRAM
• Smaller installer footprint - IPEX files now pulled from source

Known Issues & Workaround

• Some existing installations of VC++ may not have needed DLLs. If error on load screen we suggest installing the 64bit VS C++ redist https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170
• Python installation process can take more than 10 minutes or be hung by a poor internet connection. Resetting wifi or restarting install has been known to fix
• System level Python installs, not part of a virtual environment, may interfere AI Playground Python and causing the app not to start.
• First run of AI Chatbot in Answer may be very long or hang. Restarting fixes and issue is generally not seen again
• Generating HTML code from Answers may not render in the viewport, but do display in the console

NOTE:
download the appropriate executable for your target hardware

AI-Playground-v1.01b-MTL-H

AI Playground Beta Intel Core Ultra-H Installer. This is the initial launch version of AI Playground, packaged as a Windows installer for systems with an Intel® Core™ Ultra-H Processor with built-in Intel® Arc™ GPU.

Features:

• Run a variety of AI capabilities locally using your Intel Arc GPU
• Text To Image Generation using either SD1.5 and SDXL Checkpoint, Models and LoRAs
• Image to Image Generation with support for; Upscaling, Upscaling with Variation, Image to Image Generation with Variance, Inpainting, and Outpainting
• Chatbot with RAG Embeddings to search, summarize, stylize generalized knowledge from an LLM model or from local text content.
• Model swapping of PyTorch LLM, SD1.5, and SDXL models
• Multi-Language support, Chinese language added (via PR from user @Nuullll)

Fixes and updates:

• Fixes online installer causing issues with LLM after 8/05/24
• Updated some components version, for increased security
• Fix for port conflicts on static port 9999
• Code and UX fixes via community support requests

Known Issues & Workaround

• Some systems may hang on Loading Screen and can be resolved by installing VS C++ redist https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170
• Python installation process can take more than 10 minutes or be hung by a poor internet connection. Resetting wifi or restarting install has been known to fix
• System level Python installs, not part of a virtual environment, may interfere AI Playground Python and causing the app not to start.
• First run of AI Chatbot in Answer may be very long or hang. Restarting fixes and issue is generally not seen again
• Generating HTML code from Answers may not render in the viewport, but do display in the console
• SDXL image generation on many Intel Core Ultra systems may take exceedingly long due to the size of SDXL models which may be near or exceed the shared memory available to the built-in GPU
• Issues sighted with when system has an additional dGPU - work-around/fix in process

NOTE:
This version will not run on other Intel Arc GPUs, this will only run on the built-in GPUs for Intel Core Ultra-H systems

AI-Playground-v1.01b-dGPU

AI Playground Beta Desktop Windows Installer. This is an updated beta version of AI Playground, packaged as a Windows installer for Intel Arc GPUs discrete with 8GB+ of VRAM.

Features:

• Run a variety of AI capabilities locally using your Intel Arc GPU
• Text To Image Generation using either SD1.5 and SDXL Checkpoint, Models and LoRAs
• Image to Image Generation with support for; Upscaling, Upscaling with Variation, Image to Image Generation with Variance, Inpainting, and Outpainting
• Chatbot with RAG Embeddings to search, summarize, stylize generalized knowledge from an LLM model or from local text content.
• Model swapping of PyTorch LLM, SD1.5, and SDXL models
• Multi-Language support, Chinese language added (via PR from user @Nuullll)

Fixes and updates:

• Fixes online installer causing issues with LLM after 8/05/24
• Updated some components version, for increased security
• Fix for port conflicts on static port 9999
• Code and UX fixes via community support requests

Known Issues & Workaround

• Some systems may hang on Loading Screen and can be resolved by installing VS C++ redist https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170
• Python installation process can take more than 10 minutes or be hung by a poor internet connection. Resetting wifi or restarting install has been known to fix
• System level Python installs, not part of a virtual environment, may interfere AI Playground Python and causing the app not to start.
• First run of AI Chatbot in Answer may hang. Restarting fixes and issue is generally not seen again
• Generating HTML code from Answers may not render in the viewport, but do display in the console

NOTE:
This version will not run on Intel Core Ultra. Intel Core Ultra version will be available as a separate installer

AI-Playground-v1.0b-dGPU

AI Playground Beta Desktop Windows Installer. This is the initial launch beta version of AI Playground, packaged as a Windows installer for Intel Arc GPUs discrete with 8GB+ of VRAM.

Not recommended for installation after 08/5/24

Features:

• Run a variety of AI capabilities locally using your Intel Arc GPU
• Text To Image Generation using either SD1.5 and SDXL Checkpoint, Models and LoRAs
• Image to Image Generation with support for; Upscaling, Upscaling with Variation, Image to Image Generation with Variance, Inpainting, and Outpainting
• Chatbot with RAG Embeddings to search, summarize, stylize generalized knowledge from an LLM model or from local text content.
• Model swapping of PyTorch LLM, SD1.5, and SDXL models

Known Issues & Workaround

• Online installer issues run after 8/5/24, resulting in errors with LLM - fix in next release
• Python installation process can take more than 10 minutes or be hung by a poor internet connection. Resetting wifi or restarting install has been known to fix
• System level Python installs, not part of a virtual environment, may interfere AI Playground Python and causing the app not to start.
• First run of AI Chatbot in Answer may hang. Restarting fixes and issue is generally not seen again
• Generating HTML code from Answers may not render in the viewport, but do display in the console

NOTE:
This version will not run on Intel Core Ultra. Intel Core Ultra version will be available as a separate installer

AI Playground, version 01.0b does not include the latest functional and security updates. AI Playground, version 01.01b is targeted to be released mid-August and will include additional functional and security updates. Customers should update to the latest version as it becomes available._