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Edson
Edson

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Quantizing Llama 3.2 with llama.cpp – A Practical Guide

#llm #ai

Preface

Recently, I explored how to quantize Llama 3.2 from Meta using llama.cpp. During the process, I encountered a few unexpected challenges. After some trial and error, I managed to overcome these issues — and I thought it would be helpful to share what I learned.

If you’re looking to optimize Llama 3.2 for smaller hardware footprints while maintaining reasonable performance, this guide walks you through the steps and includes practical workarounds for its current lack of official support in llama.cpp.

Why llama.cpp?

llama.cpp is a lightweight C++ implementation for LLM inference that supports inference, evaluation, and quantization of large language models. While it provides built-in support for many popular models, Llama 3.2 isn’t officially included yet. The good news? Its architecture is similar enough to Llama 3 that with a few tweaks, it works just fine.

What You’ll Do

Here’s a quick roadmap:

  1. Set up llama.cpp tools

  2. Download Llama 3.2 from Hugging Face

  3. Convert the model to GGUF format

  4. Quantize the model

  5. Evaluate the result

Example project structure:

llama.cpp/
└── output/
    └── Llama-3-1B-Instruct/
        ├── model.safetensors
        ├── tokenizer.json
        └── ...
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Step 1: Prepare llama.cpp Tools

Start by cloning and building llama.cpp. If you want GPU acceleration, enable CUDA:

git clone https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp.git
cd llama.cpp
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DGGML_CUDA=ON
make
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Step 2: Download the Model from Hugging Face

Log in to Hugging Face and download the model and tokenizer:

huggingface-cli login
huggingface-cli download --local-dir output/Llama-3-1B-Instruct meta-llama/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct
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Note: The local directory is intentionally named Llama-3-1B-Instruct for compatibility with llama.cpp scripts.

Step 3: Convert the Model to GGUF Format

Since Llama 3.2 isn’t officially supported, we need a small workaround.

a) Add Model Info in Conversion Script

Update convert_hf_to_gguf_update.py:

models = [
    {"name": "llama-bpe", "tokt": TOKENIZER_TYPE.BPE, "repo": "https://huggingface.co/meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3-8B"},
    {"name": "llama3",    "tokt": TOKENIZER_TYPE.BPE, "repo": "https://huggingface.co/meta-llama/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct"},
]
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The name is just an internal identifier for llama.cpp.
A little trick here is set llama3 instead of llama3.2
Due to the identity search inside llama.cpp

b) Update Conversion Data

Run:

python convert_hf_to_gguf_update.py
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This updates the necessary checksum info automatically.

c) Convert to GGUF

Finally:

python convert_hf_to_gguf.py ./output/Llama-3-1B-Instruct
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You should see:

Llama3-1B-Instruct-F16.gguf
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Step 4: Quantize the Model

Choose a quantization type (e.g., Q8_0, Q4_K):

./build/bin/llama-quantize ./output/Llama-3-1B-Instruct/Llama3-1B-Instruct-F16.gguf ./output/Llama-3-1B-Instruct/Llama3-1B-Instruct-Q8_0.gguf --quantize Q8_0
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Step 5: Evaluate the Quantized Model

Use llama-perplexity to measure perplexity (PPL):

./build/bin/llama-perplexity -m output/Llama-3-1B-Instruct/Llama3-1B-Instruct-Q8_0.gguf -f dataset/wikitext2/calibration_dataset.txt
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Common Issues & Fixes

  • Checksum errors: Update convert_hf_to_gguf_update.py or pull latest scripts.

  • Model not recognized: Verify name in the models list and repo URL.

  • Accuracy drops: Try higher precision (e.g., Q8_0 instead of Q4_K).

  • Tokenizer problems: Ensure compatibility in llama-vocab.cpp.

Wrap-Up

While quantizing Llama 3.2 with llama.cpp isn’t yet a one-click process, it’s absolutely achievable with these tweaks. The result is a lighter, faster model that still performs well — perfect for running on consumer hardware or edge devices.

If you’ve tried other strategies or have insights, feel free to share — collaboration makes this journey easier for everyone!

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