Request: Keep ggml-metal.* files in separate directory from main binary

[dukeeagle]

Hi everyone! (And I hope you've been doing well since AIG @ggerganov!!)

I'm running whisper.cpp as a Tauri binary sidecar. This requires that all secondary files in a separate directory in my Tauri app called ./resources.

To run whisper.cpp with Metal, it seems like all ggml-metal.* files need to have the same path as the main whisper.cpp binary. This is incompatible with how Tauri invokes sidecar binaries.

Is that correct? Is there a command line argument that changes this? If not, I'd like to request / contribute to a feature that lets you specify a custom path for your metal files (specifically ggml-metal.h, ggml-metal.m, ggml-metal.metal)

[ggerganov]

Hi Luke!

Yes, currently it requires the ggml-metal.metal file to be in the same path as the binary. I've struggled with this logic and it definitely needs some improvement.

I think the easiest change to support your case would be to check an environment variable for a user-specified path if it fails to locate the ggml-metal.metal file with the default settings. The var can be called WHISPER_METAL_PATH_RESOURCES and should point to the folder that contains ggml-metal.metal

Feel free to open a PR. I soon plan to bring whisper.cpp up-to-date with latest developments of the ggml core library and improving Metal builds and Swift package will be one of the priorities.

[codesoda]

Something like #1415 @ggerganov ?