Master Local AI Art & Video Generation with SwarmUI (ComfyUI Backend): The Ultimate 2025 Tutorial #108
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Master Local AI Art & Video Generation with SwarmUI (ComfyUI Backend): The Ultimate 2025 Tutorial
Full tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTzlQ0tjxj0
If you want to generate the very best AI videos and images on your Windows computer locally this is the tutorial that you were looking for. Literally 1-click to install most powerful and advanced generative AI interface SwarmUI (with Flash Attention, Sage Attention, Triton, DeepSpeed, xFormers, RTX 5000 series perfect compatibility) and download the very best AI image and video generation models with ultra advanced model downloader Gradio app. SwarmUI utilizes the famous and most powerful, advanced, performant and optimized ComfyUI as a backend. So SwarmUI is the ultimate generative AI tool at the moment with vast amount of features and constant updates.
🔗Follow below link to download the zip file that contains SwarmUI installer and AI models downloader Gradio App - the one used in the tutorial⤵️
🔗Follow below link to download the zip file that contains ComfyUI 1-click installer that has all the Flash Attention, Sage Attention, xFormers, Triton, DeepSpeed, RTX 5000 series support⤵️
🔗 Python, Git, CUDA, C++, FFMPEG, MSVC installation tutorial - needed for ComfyUI⤵️
🔗 SECourses Official Discord 10500+ Members⤵️
🔗 Stable Diffusion, FLUX, Generative AI Tutorials and Resources GitHub⤵️
🔗 SECourses Official Reddit - Stay Subscribed To Learn All The News and More⤵️
This tutorial will show you how to install ComfyUI properly into a VENV with 1-click our installers, then install SwarmUI instantly and then how to give propoerly installed ComfyUI as a backend to the SwarmUI and generate AI images and videos with maximum speed and quality. Moreover, this tutorial will introduce you ultimate AI model downloader Gradio app being developed by us.
00:00:00 Introduction: Fastest Local Image & Video Generation with SwarmUI on Windows
00:00:38 Leveraging ComfyUI Performance & Sage Attention Speed Boost in SwarmUI
00:01:07 Introducing the Custom Unified Model Downloader Application
00:01:50 Overview of Supported Models (SD, Video, Text Encoders, GGUF, VAE etc.)
00:02:50 Why Manually Installed ComfyUI Backend is Better for SwarmUI Performance
00:03:07 Live Demo Preview: High Dream GGUF Image Generation on Dual GPUs (RTX 5090 + 3090 Ti)
00:03:52 Tutorial Start: Overview of Installers (SwarmUI, Model Downloader, ComfyUI)
00:04:20 Step 1: Downloading the SwarmUI Model Downloader Installer Zip
00:04:33 Step 2: Downloading the Manual ComfyUI Backend Installer
00:04:52 Step 3: Extracting ComfyUI Installer for Backend Setup
00:05:05 Step 4: Running ComfyUI Backend Installation (windows_install.bat)
00:05:33 Configuring ComfyUI Install: Python Version & Attention Mechanisms (Flash/Sage)
00:06:18 Step 5: Starting SwarmUI Frontend Installation (Parallel to ComfyUI)
00:06:40 Configuring SwarmUI Installation Options (Theme, Custom Settings)
00:06:54 CRUCIAL STEP: Selecting "None" for ComfyUI Backend during SwarmUI Setup
00:07:21 Step 6: Adding the Manually Installed ComfyUI Backend in SwarmUI Settings
00:07:43 Configuring Backend Path (main.py) & Enabling Sage Attention (--use-sage-attention)
00:08:28 Monitoring Backend Dependency Installation & VENV Explanation
00:09:17 Step 7: Adding a Second ComfyUI Backend for Multi-GPU Usage (GPU ID 1)
00:10:00 Step 8: Launching & Setting Up the Unified Model Downloader App
00:10:50 Using the Model Downloader: Downloading Flux Models Bundle Example
00:11:14 Understanding Downloader Speed (HF Transfer) & Progress Monitoring
00:11:50 Downloader Features: Queue System & No Re-Downloads (Wan 2.1 Example)
00:12:20 Accessing 'How-to-Use' Links for Models within the Downloader
00:13:22 Step 9: Starting SwarmUI & Refreshing Models After Downloading
00:14:08 First-Time GGUF Model Load: Installing GGUF Support Extension in SwarmUI
00:14:32 Manually Setting Model Metadata (Architecture) if Needed (HiDream Example)
00:14:48 Detailed GGUF Support Installation Walkthrough & Backend Restart
00:15:51 Ignoring C Link Fatal Error on Windows
00:16:23 Usage Demo: Generating Image with Custom Flux DreamBooth Model
00:16:41 Configuring Generation Parameters (Prompt, Steps, Sampler, CFG, Guidance)
00:17:07 Initiating Generation & Monitoring Model Loading on GPUs
00:17:50 Troubleshooting Face Inpainting & Downloading YOLO Models via Downloader
00:18:31 Advanced Feature Demo: Using the Refine Upscale Option
00:18:43 Configuring Upscale Settings (Refiner %, Upscaler Model)
00:19:19 Running Generation with Upscaling & Performance Considerations
00:19:40 Comparing Results: Original vs. High-Quality Upscaled Image Detail
00:19:52 Fine-tuning Face Inpainting: Adjusting Mask Parameters (Blur/Grow)
00:20:23 Conclusion & Where to Find Links and Ask Questions
Music provided by NoCopyrightSounds :
Music Credits : https://gist.github.com/FurkanGozukara/8fa15b67370a53af6394da239d2fce8e
Video Transcription
00:00:00 Greetings everyone. Today I am going to show you the latest method, the most accurate, and the most
00:00:07 performant method of generating images and videos on your Windows local computer with the one-click
00:00:15 installation and setup. I am going to show you how to use SwarmUI and how to download models
00:00:22 and start using them immediately on your Windows computer. This will be an epic tutorial that will
00:00:30 make your local image and video generation many times easier and with the maximum optimization.
00:00:38 Maybe you heard of the ComfyUI. The ComfyUI is so hard to use, but we can still leverage its
00:00:46 performance, its features with the SwarmUI. And my installation even supports out-of-the-box Sage
00:00:53 Attention. Maybe you also heard of it. It is the fastest attention that makes your generations way
00:01:00 faster for both image and video generation. And I will introduce you the application
00:01:07 that I have developed for downloading models with the maximum speed and maximum easiness.
00:01:13 So far we have two model bundles: Flux model bundle and High Dream L1 model bundle. With just
00:01:21 clicking these buttons, it will download all the necessary files into your SwarmUI installation.
00:01:27 Moreover, we have all kind of models with one-click to download. So you will not
00:01:33 spend time for finding models, downloading them into the accurate folders. Moreover,
00:01:38 I also have how-to-use links. So when we go to these links, we will learn how to use this
00:01:45 application, this model in the SwarmUI itself. You see, we support High Dream, we support
00:01:50 Stable Diffusion 1.5 models, we support Stable Diffusion XL models, we support Stable Diffusion
00:01:56 3.5 large models. We support YOLO Face inpainting models. We support text encoder models, T5-XXL,
00:02:04 UMT T5-XXL, Clip models, LLM text encoder. We support video generation models: Wan 2.1, Hunyuan,
00:02:14 Fast Hunyuan models. We support SkyReels. And you see that we support GGUF and also BF16 and FP16,
00:02:23 FP8 versions. We support Genmo Mochi 1, Lightricks LTX video, VAE model.
00:02:30 And this application will get better and better as you make requests to me. So you can tell me
00:02:36 that add to this model, add to that model, and hopefully I will update it. In the very
00:02:40 top of the application, you can also search and filter with the model name. So it is so,
00:02:47 so easy to use and so easy to install. Using SwarmUI with a manually installed ComfyUI
00:02:54 backend is working better than the pre-compiled ComfyUI backend. So today I will also show you
00:03:01 how to use properly installed ComfyUI backend in the SwarmUI for maximum performance. By the way,
00:03:07 these images that you are seeing right now are being generated with High Dream L1 Dev GGUF
00:03:14 Q8 model. GGUF Q8 is almost same quality as the highest quality BF16 model itself. Currently I am
00:03:23 generating with my dual GPUs. I have RTX 5090 and I have RTX 3090 Ti. So you see both of the GPUs
00:03:32 are running almost at full power. And also I am recording a video right now, so you see my PC is
00:03:39 under heavy load. However, SwarmUI with ComfyUI backend is still able to handle generations
00:03:47 really, really fast. They are getting generated right now live as you are seeing right now.
00:03:52 So, let's begin the tutorial and how to install and use these applications.
00:03:57 So, we have SwarmUI one-click installer with the SwarmUI Unified Model Downloader. But this
00:04:04 Unified Model Downloader can also be used for ComfyUI or for other applications that
00:04:10 you use as well. It supports custom folder paths and also ComfyUI installer. The links
00:04:16 of these installers will be in the description of the video, so check them out. First of all,
00:04:20 let's begin with downloading the latest SwarmUI Model Downloader zip file. So, latest zip file
00:04:26 is SwarmUI Model Downloader version 29. I have just updated it to the latest version. It is
00:04:33 downloaded. Let's also download the manual installer of ComfyUI. By manual, I mean that
00:04:39 we are not using pre-compiled. We are going to install with our installers. Move the downloaded
00:04:44 files into any of your drives. I will use my E drive. First of all, let's extract the ComfyUI
00:04:52 installation. This will be used as a backend. And why not use the pre-compiled backend? Because this
00:04:59 is way better. When you use the pre-compiled backend, it is not very up-to-date, it causes
00:05:05 problems when installing new libraries. So I will use the windows_install.bat file. This is
00:05:12 by default supporting xFormers, Flash Attention, Sage Attention, Triton, whatever you need. And it
00:05:19 works on all GPUs including RTX 5000 series. I recommend to use Python 3.10. You need to
00:05:27 have Python installed on your computer. So if you are using another version, you can select it. I
00:05:33 really recommend Python 3.10. So I will select option 1. So you can choose Flash Attention,
00:05:39 Sage Attention, or both attentions. Let's choose the both of the attentions. And it
00:05:44 will also install the xFormers as well. This is going to install with latest official Torch 2.7.
00:05:51 Don't worry, it will work on all GPUs and also pre-compiled Flash Attention, Sage Attention,
00:05:58 xFormers. I have compiled myself xFormers and Flash Attention, and the Sage Attention
00:06:03 and Triton is from our legendary woct0rdho. Maybe you heard this guy. This guy is the sole developer
00:06:13 of Triton and Sage Attention for Windows. So, meanwhile this is getting installed,
00:06:18 we can also install SwarmUI. We don't need to wait. So let's just extract the SwarmUI Model
00:06:23 Downloader. Extract all, and here. So let's begin with installing SwarmUI. You see we have
00:06:29 windows_install_swarmui.bat file. This is from the official repository, nothing is special here.
00:06:34 It will just start the installation like this. The options that you are going to choose is important.
00:06:40 We are going to choose Agree, Customize Settings, Yes. Modern Dark or whatever the you wish,
00:06:48 just yourself. And this is the most crucial part. We are not going to use ComfyUI Local.
00:06:54 This is pre-installed, pre-compiled ComfyUI. I do not recommend this. So let's go with None,
00:07:00 and Next. You can download, but I don't recommend. Our downloader is faster. Next, and Yes,
00:07:06 I am sure to install and installed. That's it. So the SwarmUI has been installed. Let's look
00:07:11 at the ComfyUI installation. It is still getting installed as you are seeing right now. All right.
00:07:16 The ComfyUI has been installed. You see, press any key to continue. And the SwarmUI has been
00:07:21 started. Now what we need to do is adding backend. So click Server, click Backends, and get to this
00:07:29 page and click ComfyUI Self-Starting. Click OK. And it shows two backends. This is a bug. Let's
00:07:36 refresh and it is fixed. So let's check this, click this green icon for editing. We need to
00:07:43 give path of the ComfyUI here. So let's return back to our ComfyUI installation. It was here.
00:07:49 Enter inside the ComfyUI and you see there is main.py file here. So let's copy like this, and
00:07:56 /main.py file. This is the backend. If you want to use Sage Attention, --use-sage-attention like
00:08:06 this. Sage Attention works only RTX 3000 and newer GPUs. So like 4080 or 5060. So 3000, 4000 and 5000
00:08:16 series are supporting. But don't worry, if your GPU is not supporting, it will use either xFormers
00:08:23 or it will use the Torch attention itself. So wait for backends to be loaded. When we go
00:08:28 to the Logs and Debug, it will show us what is happening right now. So it is installing
00:08:34 the missing libraries into our manually installed ComfyUI. And our ComfyUI has been installed with a
00:08:42 virtual environment. So this installation will not break any other applications or installations that
00:08:48 I have. This is 100 percentage isolated to here. So it is 100 percentage secure. With this way,
00:08:55 you can have as many as different ComfyUI installations and we will use the model
00:09:01 folder of the SwarmUI itself. Or you can give any model folders. How? When you go
00:09:06 to the Server Configuration, you can set your model root and other model paths
00:09:11 from here. Okay, so the installation has been completed. I have my backend ready.
00:09:17 Since I have also another GPU, let me show you. So open a CMD, type pip install nvitop, then type
00:09:25 nvitop and you will get to this page. By the way, yes. So let's start again. nvitop, and here. So
00:09:32 I have RTX 5090 and I have RTX 3090 Ti. So I can also utilize my second GPU. To do that, let's copy
00:09:41 this, click ComfyUI Self-Starting, OK, and paste it here. So copy this, paste here and give the GPU
00:09:48 ID 1 and Save. So this will work on the second GPU and this will work on the first GPU. And we are
00:09:55 ready. Our SwarmUI has been started. However, currently we do not have any of the models.
00:10:00 So, to download the models, let's return back to our SwarmUI folder where we have
00:10:06 extracted the files. You see here. Click windows_start_download_models_app.bat file. More
00:10:11 info, Run anyway. It will generate a VENV virtual environment folder here, install the necessary
00:10:17 libraries, which is not much, just Gradio and some other libraries, then it will start the
00:10:23 application. Let's just wait. For this to work, you also need to have Python installed. So if you
00:10:29 don't know how to install Python and the other libraries, I have an excellent tutorial video.
00:10:34 The link will be in the ComfyUI installation post as you are seeing right now, Windows Requirements.
00:10:40 So you can watch this tutorial and learn it with full details and step-by-step guidance.
00:10:45 So the Model Downloader started. This is the Model Downloader interface. Whichever the model you want
00:10:50 to use, you can search here and download. This is an extremely advanced UI. And also,
00:10:56 if a model is missing here, just message me from Patreon and hopefully I will add it as soon as
00:11:02 possible. So for demonstration, we can download Flux Models bundle. It will download all these
00:11:09 models. So let's click Download Flux Models bundle. And you can watch the status here. So
00:11:14 it will utilize my entire network right now. Why? Because we are utilizing enable HF transfer. This
00:11:21 is a special download method and it will speed up your downloads to your maximum network speed. Let
00:11:28 me show you from Task Manager, Performance, and you see I am downloading with 500 megabits per
00:11:34 second, like 600 megabits per second. I am also uploading models into more optimized Hugging
00:11:42 Face XET repositories so that it will be even faster hopefully in future without any errors. Moreover,
00:11:50 this downloader has queue system and if a file has been downloaded previously, it will not
00:11:57 re-download it. So this is an amazing feature. For example, I can also queue video generation
00:12:03 models download, like Wan 2.1 models download. So I can click this and it will queue that. Let's
00:12:09 see. So you see the queue size is now 7 and it shows that queued Wan 2.1 text-to-video model.
00:12:16 Moreover, if you don't know how to use these models inside SwarmUI,
00:12:20 just click these links and read them. For example, this is Wan 2.1 parameters in SwarmUI. You can read
00:12:28 here and learn it. Hopefully I will make different tutorial videos, so stay subscribed to our channel
00:12:33 to not miss any of them. This application works on RunPod and also on Massed Compute as well. The
00:12:40 instructions are all in the zip file: Massed Compute instructions, RunPod instructions.
00:12:45 Hopefully I will make a separate video for them to not make this video very long. So stay subscribed.
00:12:52 And this will download all of the models with the maximum speed, then you will be able to
00:12:57 use models inside your SwarmUI installation. The models will be automatically downloaded into the
00:13:03 accurate folders, so you don't need to spend time with them. It will show you everything,
00:13:09 every information on the screen and also on the terminal, on the CMD window. If you have any
00:13:15 questions, just ask me and hopefully I will answer them. And how to use these models are so simple.
00:13:22 Let me start my other installation which I have been showing you in the beginning of
00:13:26 the video. So for starting the SwarmUI after installation and models have been downloaded,
00:13:32 just click the Windows_start_swarmui.bat file. SwarmUI now automatically updates, so there is no
00:13:39 update button anymore. Then once the models have been downloaded, go to Models, click Refresh and
00:13:46 select the model that you want. One of the amazing feature of our downloader is that we download the
00:13:52 highest quality T5-XXL and we give you option to download highest quality models as well, like Flux
00:14:00 Dev FP16 model or you can also download Flux Dev GGUF model. When you first time try to run a GGUF
00:14:08 model, it will ask you to install GGUF extension. It is important. And also in some models, it may
00:14:16 require you to set the model type. For example, this is automatically recognized High Dream L1 Dev
00:14:23 GGUF Q8 model. So when I click this hamburger menu and say Edit Metadata, you can set it from here,
00:14:32 like High Dream architecture. It usually recognize all of the models, but if it doesn't recognize,
00:14:38 select the architecture from here and save it, then it will work.
00:14:42 Let me also show you the GGUF installation so you will not have any issues with that. To do that,
00:14:48 I will just copy my previous model to not wait it downloading. So the models are saved inside
00:14:55 diffusion models usually. So this model is saved inside the diffusion models. So let's copy this
00:15:02 and go back to our new installation. Just copy paste it. You see our download is continuing. It
00:15:08 downloaded the Flux Dev model, now downloading Flux Fill Dev model. And return back to our new
00:15:13 installation. It is here and the models are here. So let's refresh. Yes, arrived. When I click Load
00:15:20 Model, it will ask me Install GGUF support. You have to install this to be able to run GGUF. So
00:15:27 Install, OK. You need to wait backends to be loaded, then it says Installed. Please wait
00:15:34 while backends restarting. If it doesn't work, you may need to restart SwarmUI, but it usually
00:15:39 works. Just follow the logs from here, Debug menu, and you will see that it is installing
00:15:44 necessary libraries and starting. And after it has been started, it will load model into the VRAM,
00:15:51 into my GPU. You will also get this error. You see test C link fatal error. This is a Linux related
00:15:59 error. Since we are running on Windows, you can just ignore this. This happens in my all
00:16:05 applications, but you can safely ignore it. And the backend has been loaded and it is ready to use
00:16:11 right now with the GGUF support as well. You can also install TeaCache and other stuff, but hopefully
00:16:17 I will make different separate videos for them. So this is how you can begin using the very best
00:16:23 models in your local computer after installing and downloading them. For example, this is a
00:16:29 DreamBooth model that I have trained myself on. And let's generate an image as a demonstration
00:16:35 before we end the tutorial. So we have an amazing Kohya configuration. It is also on Patreon. Let's
00:16:41 go to the Test Prompts. Let's select a Realism prompt. For example, this one. This is a model
00:16:46 that has been generated on me. Since this is a Flux model, let's make the 40 steps sampling,
00:16:52 iPNDM, my favorite sampling. CFG is 1. This is for Flux and also High Dream is also same. Flux
00:16:59 Guidance Scale 4. And that's it. Let's generate an image. First, it will load it into the my
00:17:07 RTX 5090, then it will generate the image. Okay. Oh, we did set it as 100 images. Okay,
00:17:13 let's see. And we have the two backends here, so it will use both of them. All right. It should
00:17:19 start loading in a moment. You can always watch the logs from here. Let's go to Debug and let's
00:17:26 see what is happening. Okay, it says that it is waiting for model to be loaded. Yes,
00:17:31 now it is loading. We can watch the status from here. Yes, it is loading now first into the RAM,
00:17:37 then it will move them into the GPUs. Okay, the first GPU is warming up, loading the model. Yes,
00:17:44 the generation has been started. We can see that. Okay, let's see the image is getting generated.
00:17:50 Then it will inpaint the face. I have been getting asked of, the inpainting model is not working.
00:17:56 Because your installation were not accurate. So install as I have installed in this tutorial,
00:18:01 then download the face models. For example, you can... let's refresh this page. It shouldn't
00:18:07 impact the download. You see it is returned back. Go to the Other Models, and you see
00:18:12 we have Auto YOLO Masking models. Then click here and just download. It will download the best face
00:18:19 automatic recognition, segmentation models. And you see, it has generated the image. Oh,
00:18:25 there is one more thing which I need to show you. Let's cancel all sessions. Which is upscaling.
00:18:31 This was also getting asked of me. What is the best upscaling? Best upscaling is like this. Let
00:18:38 me show you. So go to the Refine Upscale, enable it first. If you don't see Advanced options, click
00:18:43 here to see the Advanced options. Set the Refiner percentage 60 percentage. Let's click Reuse
00:18:49 Parameters to upscale this image. Enable Upscale, Refiner 60 percentage, and Refiner Upscaler 2x.
00:18:57 And this is super important. I use 4x RealWebPhoto version 4. This is automatically downloaded with
00:19:03 our downloader. Where? You see we have Other Models here. When you click the Other Models
00:19:08 and when you go to the Image Upscaling models, you can download all of the image upscaling
00:19:13 models by clicking here and it will automatically download them for you into the accurate folder.
00:19:19 Now first it will generate this image, then it will upscale it. Upscaling is really heavy because
00:19:26 from 1 megapixel to 4 megapixel we are upscaling with Refiner Upscale 2x. But this is really,
00:19:34 really next level. It really improves the quality. I will show you in a moment. Okay, the upscale
00:19:40 has been completed. Okay, now watch carefully. Original image, upscaled image. Original image,
00:19:46 upscaled image. You see the difference is huge. And probably I don't even need to face inpaint
00:19:52 this. You see the face inpainting has some noticeable area here because it is black. So
00:19:58 to remove this noticeable area there, you need to play the parameters here like Segment Mask Blur,
00:20:04 Segment Mask Grow, the other things to remove it. I don't know the exact parameter right
00:20:08 now. I don't remember, but you can pretty much remove this as well. It is barely noticeable,
00:20:13 but and also it can be really easily fixed it. But from this quality into this quality.
00:20:19 And this is amazing. This is next level. Thank you so much, guys. You can always
00:20:23 message me from Patreon. You can also reply to this video. Hopefully see you later.
00:20:27 The links will be in the description of the video and also in the pinned comment.
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