diff --git a/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/dit.py b/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/dit.py
index e463c957f..c839c83ab 100644
--- a/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/dit.py
+++ b/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/dit.py
@@ -189,6 +189,7 @@ def __init__(
         attn_mask_enabled=False,
         long_skip_connection=False,
         checkpoint_activations=False,
+        gc_checkpoint_interval: int = 1,  # when checkpoint_activations=True, only ckpt every Nth block
     ):
         super().__init__()
 
@@ -231,6 +232,11 @@ def __init__(
         self.proj_out = nn.Linear(dim, mel_dim)
 
         self.checkpoint_activations = checkpoint_activations
+        # gc_checkpoint_interval > 1 → selective checkpointing every Nth block (saves ~50% of
+        # the activation memory of full GC at ~half the compute overhead). Set to 2 to trade
+        # ~10% throughput for headroom to ~2x batch size. interval=1 (default) preserves the
+        # prior behavior of checkpoint every block when checkpoint_activations=True.
+        self.gc_checkpoint_interval = max(1, int(gc_checkpoint_interval))
 
         self.initialize_weights()
 
@@ -354,8 +360,9 @@ def forward(
         if self.long_skip_connection is not None:
             residual = x
 
-        for block in self.transformer_blocks:
-            if self.checkpoint_activations:
+        for i, block in enumerate(self.transformer_blocks):
+            do_ckpt = self.checkpoint_activations and (i % self.gc_checkpoint_interval == 0)
+            if do_ckpt:
                 # https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/checkpoint.html#torch.utils.checkpoint.checkpoint
                 x = torch.utils.checkpoint.checkpoint(self.ckpt_wrapper(block), x, t, mask, rope, use_reentrant=False)
             else:
diff --git a/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/mmdit.py b/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/mmdit.py
index 262ad0d5f..292fa137b 100644
--- a/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/mmdit.py
+++ b/src/f5_tts/model/backbones/mmdit.py
@@ -99,6 +99,7 @@ def __init__(
         text_mask_padding=True,
         qk_norm=None,
         checkpoint_activations=False,
+        gc_checkpoint_interval: int = 1,
         attn_backend="torch",
         attn_mask_enabled=False,
     ):
@@ -133,6 +134,8 @@ def __init__(
         self.proj_out = nn.Linear(dim, mel_dim)
 
         self.checkpoint_activations = checkpoint_activations
+        # Selective GC: when checkpoint_activations=True, checkpoint every Nth block (default 1 = every).
+        self.gc_checkpoint_interval = max(1, int(gc_checkpoint_interval))
 
         self.initialize_weights()
 
@@ -248,8 +251,9 @@ def forward(
         rope_audio = self.rotary_embed.forward_from_seq_len(seq_len)
         rope_text = self.rotary_embed.forward_from_seq_len(text_len)
 
-        for block in self.transformer_blocks:
-            if self.checkpoint_activations:
+        for i, block in enumerate(self.transformer_blocks):
+            do_ckpt = self.checkpoint_activations and (i % self.gc_checkpoint_interval == 0)
+            if do_ckpt:
                 c, x = torch.utils.checkpoint.checkpoint(
                     self.ckpt_wrapper(block), x, c, t, mask, rope_audio, rope_text, c_mask, use_reentrant=False
                 )
diff --git a/src/f5_tts/model/cfm.py b/src/f5_tts/model/cfm.py
index e001c2ec6..ffc0f7fca 100644
--- a/src/f5_tts/model/cfm.py
+++ b/src/f5_tts/model/cfm.py
@@ -99,6 +99,8 @@ def sample(
         duplicate_test=False,
         t_inter=0.1,
         edit_mask=None,
+        cfg_zero_init_steps: int = 0,
+        cfg_zero_star_velocity: bool = False,
     ):
         self.eval()
         # raw wave
@@ -159,36 +161,58 @@ def sample(
 
         # neural ode
 
-        def fn(t, x):
-            # at each step, conditioning is fixed
-            # step_cond = torch.where(cond_mask, cond, torch.zeros_like(cond))
-
-            # predict flow (cond)
-            if cfg_strength < 1e-5:
-                pred = self.transformer(
+        # CFG-Zero* (https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.18886): zero-init the first N solver steps
+        # (no DiT forward; integrator stays at x0) and optionally replace fixed cfg_strength
+        # with the optimized projection scalar α* per step. Drop-in inference-time only;
+        # no retrain. Composes with EPSS — zero-init skips the cheapest early-noise steps.
+        # `zero_init_threshold` is computed against the t schedule below.
+
+        def make_fn(zero_init_threshold: float):
+            def fn(t_scalar, x):
+                if zero_init_threshold > -1.0 and float(t_scalar) < zero_init_threshold:
+                    return torch.zeros_like(x)
+
+                # at each step, conditioning is fixed
+                # step_cond = torch.where(cond_mask, cond, torch.zeros_like(cond))
+
+                # predict flow (cond)
+                if cfg_strength < 1e-5:
+                    pred = self.transformer(
+                        x=x,
+                        cond=step_cond,
+                        text=text,
+                        time=t_scalar,
+                        mask=mask,
+                        drop_audio_cond=False,
+                        drop_text=False,
+                        cache=True,
+                    )
+                    return pred
+
+                # predict flow (cond and uncond), for classifier-free guidance
+                pred_cfg = self.transformer(
                     x=x,
                     cond=step_cond,
                     text=text,
-                    time=t,
+                    time=t_scalar,
                     mask=mask,
-                    drop_audio_cond=False,
-                    drop_text=False,
+                    cfg_infer=True,
                     cache=True,
                 )
-                return pred
-
-            # predict flow (cond and uncond), for classifier-free guidance
-            pred_cfg = self.transformer(
-                x=x,
-                cond=step_cond,
-                text=text,
-                time=t,
-                mask=mask,
-                cfg_infer=True,
-                cache=True,
-            )
-            pred, null_pred = torch.chunk(pred_cfg, 2, dim=0)
-            return pred + (pred - null_pred) * cfg_strength
+                pred, null_pred = torch.chunk(pred_cfg, 2, dim=0)
+
+                if cfg_zero_star_velocity:
+                    # Optimized scale α* = <pred, null_pred> / ||null_pred||² per-batch.
+                    pos = pred.reshape(pred.shape[0], -1)
+                    neg = null_pred.reshape(null_pred.shape[0], -1)
+                    dot = (pos * neg).sum(dim=1, keepdim=True)
+                    sq_norm = (neg * neg).sum(dim=1, keepdim=True).clamp_min(1e-8)
+                    alpha = (dot / sq_norm).view(pred.shape[0], 1, 1)
+                    return null_pred * alpha + cfg_strength * (pred - null_pred * alpha)
+
+                return pred + (pred - null_pred) * cfg_strength
+
+            return fn
 
         # noise input
         # to make sure batch inference result is same with different batch size, and for sure single inference
@@ -215,6 +239,12 @@ def fn(t, x):
         if sway_sampling_coef is not None:
             t = t + sway_sampling_coef * (torch.cos(torch.pi / 2 * t) - 1 + t)
 
+        if cfg_zero_init_steps > 0 and cfg_zero_init_steps < t.numel():
+            zero_init_threshold = float(t[cfg_zero_init_steps].item())
+        else:
+            zero_init_threshold = -1.0
+        fn = make_fn(zero_init_threshold)
+
         trajectory = odeint(fn, y0, t, **self.odeint_kwargs)
         self.transformer.clear_cache()
 
diff --git a/src/f5_tts/model/trainer.py b/src/f5_tts/model/trainer.py
index 782923222..3165fa82d 100644
--- a/src/f5_tts/model/trainer.py
+++ b/src/f5_tts/model/trainer.py
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ def __init__(
         is_local_vocoder: bool = False,  # use local path vocoder
         local_vocoder_path: str = "",  # local vocoder path
         model_cfg_dict: dict = dict(),  # training config
+        torch_compile_mode: str | None = None,  # None | "default" | "reduce-overhead" | "max-autotune"
     ):
         ddp_kwargs = DistributedDataParallelKwargs(find_unused_parameters=True)
 
@@ -103,6 +104,18 @@ def __init__(
 
         self.model = model
 
+        # torch.compile (PyTorch 2.x). Applied BEFORE accelerator.prepare so DDP wraps the
+        # compiled module. Variable mel-frame counts trigger recompiles — keep cache size
+        # generous and prefer "default" mode unless seq-lens are bucketed externally.
+        if torch_compile_mode is not None:
+            try:
+                import torch._dynamo as _dynamo  # noqa: F401
+
+                torch._dynamo.config.cache_size_limit = max(64, torch._dynamo.config.cache_size_limit)
+            except Exception:
+                pass
+            self.model = torch.compile(self.model, mode=torch_compile_mode)
+
         if self.is_main:
             self.ema_model = EMA(model, include_online_model=False, **ema_kwargs)
             self.ema_model.to(self.accelerator.device)
diff --git a/src/f5_tts/train/finetune_cli.py b/src/f5_tts/train/finetune_cli.py
index cdf42a9ac..fc8ec21a7 100644
--- a/src/f5_tts/train/finetune_cli.py
+++ b/src/f5_tts/train/finetune_cli.py
@@ -71,6 +71,23 @@ def parse_args():
         action="store_true",
         help="Use 8-bit Adam optimizer from bitsandbytes",
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--torch_compile",
+        type=str,
+        default=None,
+        choices=[None, "default", "reduce-overhead", "max-autotune"],
+        help="torch.compile() mode for the training model. None disables (default).",
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--gc_checkpoint_interval",
+        type=int,
+        default=0,
+        help=(
+            "Gradient-checkpointing interval. 0 disables (default). 1 = checkpoint every transformer "
+            "block (max memory savings). 2 = every 2nd block (~50%% activation mem at ~10%% throughput "
+            "cost — often net positive once batch size is doubled). DiT/MMDiT/UNetT only."
+        ),
+    )
 
     return parser.parse_args()
 
@@ -174,6 +191,19 @@ def main():
         mel_spec_type=mel_spec_type,
     )
 
+    # Forward optional gradient-checkpointing flags to the transformer __init__.
+    # UNetT doesn't expose checkpoint_activations yet — guard via signature inspection.
+    if args.gc_checkpoint_interval > 0:
+        import inspect
+
+        params = inspect.signature(model_cls.__init__).parameters
+        if "checkpoint_activations" in params:
+            model_cfg["checkpoint_activations"] = True
+        if "gc_checkpoint_interval" in params:
+            model_cfg["gc_checkpoint_interval"] = args.gc_checkpoint_interval
+        if "checkpoint_activations" not in params:
+            print(f"warning: {model_cls.__name__} does not support --gc_checkpoint_interval; flag ignored")
+
     model = CFM(
         transformer=model_cls(**model_cfg, text_num_embeds=vocab_size, mel_dim=n_mel_channels),
         mel_spec_kwargs=mel_spec_kwargs,
@@ -200,6 +230,7 @@ def main():
         log_samples=args.log_samples,
         last_per_updates=args.last_per_updates,
         bnb_optimizer=args.bnb_optimizer,
+        torch_compile_mode=args.torch_compile,
     )
 
     train_dataset = load_dataset(args.dataset_name, tokenizer, mel_spec_kwargs=mel_spec_kwargs)