200+ models trained from scratch: only one multimodal encoding choice matters
sainingxie · x · 2026-11-14
- A new thread by @ellisbrown asks how multimodal models should encode visual input: pretrained encoder, encoder-free, or processing before the LLM?
- Published models bundle these architecture choices together, so the team trained 200+ models from scratch to disentangle which decision actually matters.
- The finding: only one of these choices does. Quoting sainingxie's warning: think twice before hopping on the 'encoder-free' hype train.
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