Episode
Why Local LLMs Suddenly Slow Down at Long Context
- Published
- Jun 28, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 331
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/ecca952f
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Summary
This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/why-local-llms-suddenly-slow-down-at-long-context . Your local LLM runs fine until it doesn't. A look at KV cache spilling from VRAM into shared memory, and why it happens silently on Windows. Check more stories related to tech-stories at: https://hackernoon.com/c/tech-stories . You can also check exclusive content about #local-llms , #llama.cpp , #kv-cache , #vram , #gpu , #local-inference , #machine-learning , #hackernoon-top-story , and more. This story was written by: @speederx . Learn more about this writer by checking @speederx's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com . Your local LLM runs fine until the context fills up past a certain point - then generation speed can drop by ~50%. The cause is the KV cache spilling out of VRAM into slower shared memory. On Windows it happens silently, with no out-of-memory error to warn you.