On the Influence of the Feature Computation Budget on Per-Instance Algorithm Selection for Black-Box Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: van der Blom, Koen, Vermetten, Diederick
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author van der Blom, Koen
Vermetten, Diederick
author_facet van der Blom, Koen
Vermetten, Diederick
contents Per-instance algorithm selection (PIAS) takes advantage of complementarity between a set of algorithms by deciding which algorithm to run on a given instance. This decision is based on features of the instances, which, in the context of black-box optimization (BBO), require a part of the optimization budget to be computed. This raises two questions: (a) from which fraction of the budget spent on feature computation does PIAS become worth it for BBO, and (b) which fraction of the budget optimizes the tradeoff between feature accuracy and PIAS performance. To this end, we perform a broad study where PIAS with varying sampling budgets for feature computation is compared to the single best algorithm on a broad range of algorithm selection scenarios. These scenarios consist of two portfolio sizes, three problem sets, 4 dimensionalities, and 10 target budgets. We find that PIAS is viable for the majority of tested scenarios, even when as much as a quarter of the total budget is spent on feature computation. The tradeoff for the fraction of the budget spent on feature computation to maximize the benefit of PIAS is highly dependent on the specific AS scenario. Further, on average 20 percent of PIAS loss to the virtual best solver is explained by the budget spent on feature computation, highlighting the importance of properly accounting for the feature budget.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_04954
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Influence of the Feature Computation Budget on Per-Instance Algorithm Selection for Black-Box Optimization
van der Blom, Koen
Vermetten, Diederick
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Machine Learning
Per-instance algorithm selection (PIAS) takes advantage of complementarity between a set of algorithms by deciding which algorithm to run on a given instance. This decision is based on features of the instances, which, in the context of black-box optimization (BBO), require a part of the optimization budget to be computed. This raises two questions: (a) from which fraction of the budget spent on feature computation does PIAS become worth it for BBO, and (b) which fraction of the budget optimizes the tradeoff between feature accuracy and PIAS performance. To this end, we perform a broad study where PIAS with varying sampling budgets for feature computation is compared to the single best algorithm on a broad range of algorithm selection scenarios. These scenarios consist of two portfolio sizes, three problem sets, 4 dimensionalities, and 10 target budgets. We find that PIAS is viable for the majority of tested scenarios, even when as much as a quarter of the total budget is spent on feature computation. The tradeoff for the fraction of the budget spent on feature computation to maximize the benefit of PIAS is highly dependent on the specific AS scenario. Further, on average 20 percent of PIAS loss to the virtual best solver is explained by the budget spent on feature computation, highlighting the importance of properly accounting for the feature budget.
title On the Influence of the Feature Computation Budget on Per-Instance Algorithm Selection for Black-Box Optimization
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.04954