RIFE 4.26 on Windows 11 — Command-Line Installation Guide

There are two pieces you need: the binary (the rife-ncnn-vulkan executable) and the model (rife-v4.26 weights). The upstream nihui release is stuck at models up to v4.6, so you'll use TNTwise's fork, which maintains up-to-date model support including v4.26.

Step 1 — Download the Binary

The actively maintained fork for newer models is TNTwise's rife-ncnn-vulkan at https://github.com/TNTwise/rife-ncnn-vulkan.

Go to: https://github.com/TNTwise/rife-ncnn-vulkan/releases
Download the latest Windows zip, e.g. rife-ncnn-vulkan-YYYYMMDD-windows.zip
Extract it to a folder, e.g. C:\tools\rife-ncnn-vulkan\

The package includes all binaries and models required — it is portable, so no CUDA or PyTorch runtime environment is needed.

Step 2 — Add to PATH

To run rife-ncnn-vulkan.exe from any directory (instead of always cd-ing into the install folder), add the extraction folder to your system PATH:

C:\tools\rife-ncnn-vulkan\

You must also define the environment variable RIFE_HOME and set it to the same folder:

RIFE_HOME=C:\tools\rife-ncnn-vulkan\

Note: RIFE_HOME must point to the same directory that is added to PATH. RIFE locates its model files via the -m command-line flag, not through environment variables, but RIFE_HOME is still required.

Step 3 — Basic Usage (Interpolate Between Two Images)

To interpolate between two images and produce a middle frame:

rife-ncnn-vulkan.exe -0 frame0.png -1 frame1.png -o middle.png -m %RIFE_HOME%\rife-v4.26

To process a whole directory of frames:

rife-ncnn-vulkan.exe -i input_frames\ -o output_frames\ -m %RIFE_HOME%\rife-v4.26

Full CLI Reference

Key flags:

Flag	Meaning
`-0 <path>`	First input image (jpg/png/webp)
`-1 <path>`	Second input image
`-o <path>`	Output image or directory
`-m <path>`	Model path (point to your `rife-v4.26` folder)
`-g <id>`	GPU device: `0`, `1`, `2` for GPU, `-1` for CPU
`-j <n:n:n>`	Thread counts for load:proc:save
`-n <count>`	Number of frames to generate between the two inputs (default: 1)
`-v`	Verbose output

Running Without a GPU (CPU Mode)

You can run on CPU by setting -g -1.

rife-ncnn-vulkan.exe -0 frame0.png -1 frame1.png -o middle.png -m %RIFE_HOME%\rife-v4.26 -g -1

You can also run on CPU, discrete GPU, and integrated GPU simultaneously:

rife-ncnn-vulkan.exe -i input_frames\ -o output_frames\ -g -1,-1,0,1 -j 2:4,4,2,1:4

Important caveat: CPU mode works but is significantly slower — expect 10–30× slower processing compared to even an integrated GPU. For a single pair of 1080p frames it's tolerable; for video interpolation it will be very slow.

Quick Test Checklist

# Verify the binary runs
rife-ncnn-vulkan.exe -h

# Single frame interpolation test (CPU, no GPU needed)
rife-ncnn-vulkan.exe -0 A.png -1 B.png -o middle.png -m %RIFE_HOME%\rife-v4.26 -g -1 -v

If you get a Vulkan error with GPU mode, make sure your GPU drivers are up to date. CPU mode (-g -1) requires no Vulkan device at all.

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