Quantization hangs, even for 100 imges

[prashant-saxena]

Hardware:
GPU: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz, 1800 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
OS:
Windows 10
Software:
Python 3.10.0
nncf 2.17.0
openvino 2025.2.0

I am trying to quantize codeformer, a float32, opset 13, onnx model to INT8 format for performance gain.
Model Inputs:
Name: x, Shape: [0, 3, 512, 512], Data Type: FLOAT
Name: w, Shape: [], Data Type: DOUBLE

A collection of 200 images (512x512) has been created. Here is the script

import numpy as np
from PIL import Image
import os
import nncf
from nncf import Dataset
import onnx

# Load your ONNX model
onnx_model = onnx.load("codeformer_opset13.onnx")

def preload_calibration_dataset(images_dir):
    data = []
    for filename in os.listdir(images_dir):
        if filename.lower().endswith((".png", ".jpg", ".jpeg")):
            img_path = os.path.join(images_dir, filename)
            img = Image.open(img_path).convert("RGB").resize((512, 512))
            img_np = np.array(img).astype(np.float32) / 255.0
            img_np = img_np.transpose(2, 0, 1)
            img_np = np.expand_dims(img_np, axis=0)
            data.append({
                "x": img_np,
                "w": np.array(1.0, dtype=np.float64)
            })
    print(f"Loaded {len(data)} images for calibration.")
    return data

# Wrap with nncf.Dataset
dataset = Dataset(preload_calibration_dataset("faces/class1"))

# Run quantization
quantized_model = nncf.quantize(onnx_model, dataset)

# Save the quantized ONNX model
onnx.save(quantized_model, "codeformer_int8.onnx")

The process starts and immediately hangs my laptop as soon as statistical collection starts processing the first image . Here is the captured image:

I am getting my hands on NNCF for the very first time. Am I missing something here or it's just the hardware limitation causing the issue?

[MaximProshin]

@andrey-churkin , please analyze it.

[andrey-churkin]

Hi @prashant-saxena,

Thanks for reporting the issue. Could you please provide more information about the following:

• How was the codeformer_opset13.onnx model obtained? Were any scripts or guidelines used?
• How much RAM does your system have?

[prashant-saxena]

I have been using codeformer.onnx for quite a long time. I am not sure but I think since it's release. That time I did a conversion from .pth to .onnx and later to openvino from this version. I am teaching basics of Machine Learning and AI to school and university students. Unfortunately most of them don't have access to professional graphic card. They have a decent laptop with multi code Intel based CPU with integrated GPU and RAM in between 8-16 GB. Based on personal experience openvino is performing best in the above mentioned hardware. float16 models are performing faster then float32, that's why I decided to push the limit by testing INT8 conversion. I tried above python code on two systems with:

• Processor :: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz, 1800 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
• 8 & 16 GB of RAM
  On both of them, the script crashes the system. NNCF was complaining about the onnx model we are using because of a lower opset version. I have increased the opset version version to 13.

from onnx import version_converter
converted = version_converter.convert_version(onnx_model, 13)
onnx.save(converted, "codeformer_opset13.onnx")

I do have another issue also 26391 and I believe these two might be related. Please have a look.

I have also tried an iterator to feed the data to NNCF one by one but that also have failed:

# Create a simple custom Dataset iterator
def calibration_dataset(images_dir, input_shape=(3, 512, 512)):
    for filename in os.listdir(images_dir):
        if filename.lower().endswith((".png", ".jpg", ".jpeg")):
            img_path = os.path.join(images_dir, filename)
            img = Image.open(img_path).convert("RGB").resize((512, 512))
            img_np = np.array(img).astype(np.float32) / 255.0
            img_np = img_np.transpose(2, 0, 1)  # HWC → CHW
            img_np = np.expand_dims(img_np, axis=0)  # [1, 3, 512, 512]
            yield {
                "x": img_np,
                "w": np.array(1.0, dtype=np.float64)  # Scalar double input
            }