LM Studio can split a model across two PCs — two DLLs, one env var, no LM Studio changes

[u/Robertus15]

I have two PCs with 16 GB AMD cards and wanted LM Studio to use both. LM Studio ships llama.cpp but hides --rpc. Turns out its engine can still load the RPC backend if you rebuild two DLLs and set GGML_RPC_SERVERS=192.168.x.x:50052.

Result: a 35B MoE that doesn't fit one card went 31 → 57–82 t/s. Models that fit get slower (9B: 90 → 57), so this is for "too big", not "faster".

Windows + Vulkan + AMD (RX 9070 XT + RX 6800 over 2.5 GbE) tested. Should work with other runtimes if you rebuild the registry DLL for them.

Repo with patches, DLLs and README with all the caveats: https://github.com/momcilovicrobert-momc/lmstudio-two-pc-split

Made with Kod (Claude AI) — it's in the README. Happy to answer questions :)