SGD - good results. ADAM - really bad - why?

Hi,
this is really wired.
i am using a solution code for CIFAR10 using cnn (from Udacity deep learning , public repository).

when i train the network using SGD optimizer - i get accuracy of 72% (lets assume its good)
but when i change to ADAM - i get 10% accuracy, and doing the train the loss dont change.

i have check multiple time that its the correct code, and it is!

do you know the reason? , as known Adam should be better then SGD .

this is the loss for Adam:
Epoch: 1 Training Loss: 2.305185 Validation Loss: 2.303153
Epoch: 2 Training Loss: 2.304046 Validation Loss: 2.303932
Epoch: 3 Training Loss: 2.304276 Validation Loss: 2.304587
Epoch: 4 Training Loss: 2.304290 Validation Loss: 2.304771
Epoch: 5 Training Loss: 2.304313 Validation Loss: 2.304767
Epoch: 6 Training Loss: 2.304428 Validation Loss: 2.305437
Epoch: 7 Training Loss: 2.304531 Validation Loss: 2.303925
Epoch: 8 Training Loss: 2.304736 Validation Loss: 2.304267

here is loss for Adam
Epoch: 1 Training Loss: 1.484200 Validation Loss: 0.292755
Epoch: 2 Training Loss: 1.128465 Validation Loss: 0.250197
Epoch: 3 Training Loss: 0.975305 Validation Loss: 0.219079
Epoch: 4 Training Loss: 0.866838 Validation Loss: 0.219783
Epoch: 5 Training Loss: 0.779665 Validation Loss: 0.180415
Epoch: 6 Training Loss: 0.714491 Validation Loss: 0.168658
Epoch: 7 Training Loss: 0.659699 Validation Loss: 0.160974
Epoch: 8 Training Loss: 0.613168 Validation Loss: 0.158714

here is a link to colab if you want: (i had to pot spaces , as new used i am not allowed to add link)

h t t p s : / / c o l a b . r e s e a r c h . g o o g l e . c o m / d r i v e / 1 g w Z C h d 4 C 4 b 7 I X T r 0 H d S s c m g l q c M l o s T W ? u s p = s h a r i n g

and here is the entire code:

import torch
import numpy as np

check if CUDA is available

train_on_gpu = torch.cuda.is_available()

if not train_on_gpu:
print(‘CUDA is not available. Training on CPU …’)
else:
print(‘CUDA is available! Training on GPU …’)

from torchvision import datasets
import torchvision.transforms as transforms
from torch.utils.data.sampler import SubsetRandomSampler

number of subprocesses to use for data loading

num_workers = 0

how many samples per batch to load

batch_size = 20

percentage of training set to use as validation

valid_size = 0.2

convert data to a normalized torch.FloatTensor

transform = transforms.Compose([
transforms.ToTensor(),
transforms.Normalize((0.5, 0.5, 0.5), (0.5, 0.5, 0.5))
])

choose the training and test datasets

train_data = datasets.CIFAR10(‘data’, train=True,
download=True, transform=transform)
test_data = datasets.CIFAR10(‘data’, train=False,
download=True, transform=transform)

obtain training indices that will be used for validation

num_train = len(train_data)
indices = list(range(num_train))
np.random.shuffle(indices)
split = int(np.floor(valid_size * num_train))
train_idx, valid_idx = indices[split:], indices[:split]

define samplers for obtaining training and validation batches

train_sampler = SubsetRandomSampler(train_idx)
valid_sampler = SubsetRandomSampler(valid_idx)

prepare data loaders (combine dataset and sampler)

train_loader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(train_data, batch_size=batch_size,
sampler=train_sampler, num_workers=num_workers)
valid_loader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(train_data, batch_size=batch_size,
sampler=valid_sampler, num_workers=num_workers)
test_loader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(test_data, batch_size=batch_size,
num_workers=num_workers)

specify the image classes

classes = [‘airplane’, ‘automobile’, ‘bird’, ‘cat’, ‘deer’,
‘dog’, ‘frog’, ‘horse’, ‘ship’, ‘truck’]

“”"### Visualize a Batch of Training Data"""

Commented out IPython magic to ensure Python compatibility.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

%matplotlib inline

helper function to un-normalize and display an image

def imshow(img):
img = img / 2 + 0.5 # unnormalize
plt.imshow(np.transpose(img, (1, 2, 0))) # convert from Tensor image

obtain one batch of training images

dataiter = iter(train_loader)
images, labels = dataiter.next()
images = images.numpy() # convert images to numpy for display

plot the images in the batch, along with the corresponding labels

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(25, 4))

display 20 images

for idx in np.arange(20):
ax = fig.add_subplot(2, 20/2, idx+1, xticks=[], yticks=[])
imshow(images[idx])
ax.set_title(classes[labels[idx]])

“”"### View an Image in More Detail

Here, we look at the normalized red, green, and blue (RGB) color channels as three separate, grayscale intensity images.
“”"

rgb_img = np.squeeze(images[3])
channels = [‘red channel’, ‘green channel’, ‘blue channel’]

fig = plt.figure(figsize = (36, 36))
for idx in np.arange(rgb_img.shape[0]):
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 3, idx + 1)
img = rgb_img[idx]
ax.imshow(img, cmap=‘gray’)
ax.set_title(channels[idx])
width, height = img.shape
thresh = img.max()/2.5
for x in range(width):
for y in range(height):
val = round(img[x][y],2) if img[x][y] !=0 else 0
ax.annotate(str(val), xy=(y,x),
horizontalalignment=‘center’,
verticalalignment=‘center’, size=8,
color=‘white’ if img[x][y]<thresh else ‘black’)

import torch.nn as nn
import torch.nn.functional as F

define the CNN architecture

class Net(nn.Module):
def init(self):
super(Net, self).init()
# convolutional layer (sees 32x32x3 image tensor)
self.conv1 = nn.Conv2d(3, 16, 3, padding=1)
# convolutional layer (sees 16x16x16 tensor)
self.conv2 = nn.Conv2d(16, 32, 3, padding=1)
# convolutional layer (sees 8x8x32 tensor)
self.conv3 = nn.Conv2d(32, 64, 3, padding=1)
# max pooling layer
self.pool = nn.MaxPool2d(2, 2)
# linear layer (64 * 4 * 4 → 500)
self.fc1 = nn.Linear(64 * 4 * 4, 500)
# linear layer (500 → 10)
self.fc2 = nn.Linear(500, 10)
# dropout layer (p=0.25)
self.dropout = nn.Dropout(0.25)

def forward(self, x):
    # add sequence of convolutional and max pooling layers
    x = self.pool(F.relu(self.conv1(x)))
    x = self.pool(F.relu(self.conv2(x)))
    x = self.pool(F.relu(self.conv3(x)))
    # flatten image input
    x = x.view(-1, 64 * 4 * 4)
    # add dropout layer
    x = self.dropout(x)
    # add 1st hidden layer, with relu activation function
    x = F.relu(self.fc1(x))
    # add dropout layer
    x = self.dropout(x)
    # add 2nd hidden layer, with relu activation function
    x = self.fc2(x)
    return x

create a complete CNN

model = Net()
print(model)

move tensors to GPU if CUDA is available

if train_on_gpu:
model.cuda()

import torch.optim as optim

specify loss function (categorical cross-entropy)

criterion = nn.CrossEntropyLoss()

specify optimizer

optimizer = optim.Adam(model.parameters(), lr=0.01)

number of epochs to train the model

n_epochs = 30

valid_loss_min = np.Inf # track change in validation loss

for epoch in range(1, n_epochs+1):

# keep track of training and validation loss
train_loss = 0.0
valid_loss = 0.0

###################
# train the model #
###################
model.train()
for data, target in train_loader:
    # move tensors to GPU if CUDA is available
    if train_on_gpu:
        data, target = data.cuda(), target.cuda()
    # clear the gradients of all optimized variables
    optimizer.zero_grad()
    # forward pass: compute predicted outputs by passing inputs to the model
    output = model(data)
    # calculate the batch loss
    loss = criterion(output, target)
    # backward pass: compute gradient of the loss with respect to model parameters
    loss.backward()
    # perform a single optimization step (parameter update)
    optimizer.step()
    # update training loss
    train_loss += loss.item()*data.size(0)
    
######################    
# validate the model #
######################
model.eval()
for data, target in valid_loader:
    # move tensors to GPU if CUDA is available
    if train_on_gpu:
        data, target = data.cuda(), target.cuda()
    # forward pass: compute predicted outputs by passing inputs to the model
    output = model(data)
    # calculate the batch loss
    loss = criterion(output, target)
    # update average validation loss 
    valid_loss += loss.item()*data.size(0)

# calculate average losses
train_loss = train_loss/len(train_loader.sampler)
valid_loss = valid_loss/len(valid_loader.sampler)
    
# print training/validation statistics 
print('Epoch: {} \tTraining Loss: {:.6f} \tValidation Loss: {:.6f}'.format(
    epoch, train_loss, valid_loss))

# save model if validation loss has decreased
if valid_loss <= valid_loss_min:
    print('Validation loss decreased ({:.6f} --> {:.6f}).  Saving model ...'.format(
    valid_loss_min,
    valid_loss))
    torch.save(model.state_dict(), 'model_cifar.pt')
    valid_loss_min = valid_loss

“”"### Load the Model with the Lowest Validation Loss"""

model.load_state_dict(torch.load(‘model_cifar.pt’))

“”"—

Test the Trained Network

Test your trained model on previously unseen data! A “good” result will be a CNN that gets around 70% (or more, try your best!) accuracy on these test images.
“”"

track test loss

test_loss = 0.0
class_correct = list(0. for i in range(10))
class_total = list(0. for i in range(10))

model.eval()

iterate over test data

for data, target in test_loader:
# move tensors to GPU if CUDA is available
if train_on_gpu:
data, target = data.cuda(), target.cuda()
# forward pass: compute predicted outputs by passing inputs to the model
output = model(data)
# calculate the batch loss
loss = criterion(output, target)
# update test loss
test_loss += loss.item()*data.size(0)
# convert output probabilities to predicted class
_, pred = torch.max(output, 1)
# compare predictions to true label
correct_tensor = pred.eq(target.data.view_as(pred))
correct = np.squeeze(correct_tensor.numpy()) if not train_on_gpu else np.squeeze(correct_tensor.cpu().numpy())
# calculate test accuracy for each object class
for i in range(batch_size):
label = target.data[i]
class_correct[label] += correct[i].item()
class_total[label] += 1

average test loss

test_loss = test_loss/len(test_loader.dataset)
print(‘Test Loss: {:.6f}\n’.format(test_loss))

for i in range(10):
if class_total[i] > 0:
print(‘Test Accuracy of %5s: %2d%% (%2d/%2d)’ % (
classes[i], 100 * class_correct[i] / class_total[i],
np.sum(class_correct[i]), np.sum(class_total[i])))
else:
print(‘Test Accuracy of %5s: N/A (no training examples)’ % (classes[i]))

print(’\nTest Accuracy (Overall): %2d%% (%2d/%2d)’ % (
100. * np.sum(class_correct) / np.sum(class_total),
np.sum(class_correct), np.sum(class_total)))

“”"

1 Like

about the question .
the SECOND loss is SGD (I accidentally wrote Adam)

1 Like

you should use way lower lr with adam to work.
try lr = 1e-4 or lower

this is not always true.

Hi @mMagmer ,
i change the lr as you suggested and i see massive improvement. - thank you.
this raise numbers of question:

  1. dose Adam optimizer usually need lr in this order of magnitude?
  2. is it a thumb rule what lr i should use in each optimizer?
  3. next time when i build a network and i fail in training it - how can i know if its because bad architecture or because (like in this case) i didn’t choose the right lr ? (there are so many parameters - how could i know were i was wrong?)

thank you very much for your king help,
regards,

If you want, I answer your questions, but I might be wrong.

  1. yes
  2. I think you can play around with default lr setup in optim method. i.e. for SGD it’s .1 for Adam it’s 1e-3.
  3. if your model architecture does not require specific optim method, you can use SGD with momentum. It’s very well-behaved.

It’s also depended on batch size and how you are averaging the loss.

@mMagmer thank for your answers

can you please explain more about it?
what should i assume when i use small/big batch size and how the loss avg affect the learning rate

By default, nn.crossentropy and other loss are using reduction='mean', if set reduction='sum', you are effectively multiplying LR by batch size.
Even if you’re using ‘mean’, Some of optim methods are requited to update LR after changing batch size.

@mMagmer thank you for your answer.
i will read about it more