Gemini last models: temperature, top_p, and top_k are deprecated and ignored

ai.google.dev
July 21, 2026
10 min read
53/100
Summary
Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite are now generally available for production use. Gemini 3.6 Flash offers improved performance in complex tasks with reduced token usage and lower pricing compared to 3.5 Flash, while Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the fastest and most cost-effective model in the 3.5 family, outperforming previous Flash-Lite generations.
Key Takeaways
- Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite are now generally available for production use.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash offers improved performance in complex tasks with reduced token usage and lower pricing compared to Gemini 3.5 Flash.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the fastest and most cost-effective model in the 3.5 family, outperforming previous generations in high-performance execution.
- Both models support a context window of 1 million tokens and a maximum output of 64,000 tokens, along with integrated tools for enhanced functionality.
Coverage & discussions
Hacker News · ai.google.dev
Community discussions
Community Sentiment
Positives
- Some users appreciate the potential for improved determinism with system instructions, suggesting a shift towards more tailored AI interactions.
Concerns
- Commenters are concerned that the removal of top_k and top_p will lead to less control over output quality, with one predicting it will be worse than using top_k=1.
- There's skepticism about the stability of Gemini 4, with users pointing out that it becomes unstable when not using the 'official' sampler settings.
Related Articles

Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber
Jul 21, 2026

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Built for intelligence at scale
Mar 3, 2026

Inception "Mercury 3", 1000 tok/s diffusion LLM
Oct 19, 2026

Harness Engineering 101: The LLM is the brain, the harness is the body
Oct 19, 2026

If you don't run your own LLM proxy, how do you know whats going on?
Oct 18, 2026