Floating-point precision of the model

4.21. Floating-point precision of the model#

The following options control the precision of the model:

  • The environment variable DP_INTERFACE_PREC controls the interface precision of the model, the descriptor, and the fitting, the precision of the environmental matrix, and the precision of the normalized parameters for the environmental matrix and the fitting output.

  • The training parameters precision in the descriptor, the fitting, and the type embedding control the precision of neural networks in those components, and the subsequent operations after the output of neural networks.

  • The reduced output (e.g. total energy) is always float64.

Usually, the following two combinations of options are recommended:

The Python and C++ inference interfaces accept both float64 and float32 as the input and output arguments, whatever the floating-point precision of the model interface is. Usually, the MD programs (such as LAMMPS) only use float64 in their interfaces.