diff --git a/maskrcnn_benchmark/config/defaults.py b/maskrcnn_benchmark/config/defaults.py
index 90cf7fc88..17b107bec 100644
--- a/maskrcnn_benchmark/config/defaults.py
+++ b/maskrcnn_benchmark/config/defaults.py
@@ -254,9 +254,6 @@
 # see 2 images per batch
 _C.SOLVER.IMS_PER_BATCH = 16
 
-# Whether or not to use mixed-precision (via apex.amp)
-_C.SOLVER.MIXED_PRECISION = False
-
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
 # Specific test options
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
@@ -275,3 +272,13 @@
 _C.OUTPUT_DIR = "."
 
 _C.PATHS_CATALOG = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "paths_catalog.py")
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+# Precision options
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+
+# Precision of input, allowable: (float32, float16)
+_C.DTYPE = "float32"
+
+# Enable verbosity in apex.amp
+_C.AMP_VERBOSE = False
diff --git a/maskrcnn_benchmark/layers/batch_norm.py b/maskrcnn_benchmark/layers/batch_norm.py
index 712faedc1..3762e49e8 100644
--- a/maskrcnn_benchmark/layers/batch_norm.py
+++ b/maskrcnn_benchmark/layers/batch_norm.py
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ def __init__(self, n):
 
     def forward(self, x):
         # Cast all fixed parameters to half() if necessary
-        if x.type() == torch.half:
+        if x.dtype == torch.float16:
             self.weight = self.weight.half()
             self.bias = self.bias.half()
             self.running_mean = self.running_mean.half()
diff --git a/tools/test_net.py b/tools/test_net.py
index e1eb33e76..effa180ba 100644
--- a/tools/test_net.py
+++ b/tools/test_net.py
@@ -17,6 +17,12 @@
 from maskrcnn_benchmark.utils.logger import setup_logger
 from maskrcnn_benchmark.utils.miscellaneous import mkdir
 
+# Check if we can enable mixed-precision via apex.amp
+try:
+    from apex import amp
+except ImportError:
+    raise ImportError('Use APEX for mixed precision via apex.amp')
+
 
 def main():
     parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="PyTorch Object Detection Inference")
@@ -60,6 +66,10 @@ def main():
     model = build_detection_model(cfg)
     model.to(cfg.MODEL.DEVICE)
 
+    # Initialize mixed-precision if necessary
+    use_mixed_precision = cfg.DTYPE == 'float16'
+    amp_handle = amp.init(enabled=use_mixed_precision, verbose=cfg.AMP_VERBOSE)
+
     output_dir = cfg.OUTPUT_DIR
     checkpointer = DetectronCheckpointer(cfg, model, save_dir=output_dir)
     _ = checkpointer.load(cfg.MODEL.WEIGHT)
diff --git a/tools/train_net.py b/tools/train_net.py
index 34c4ac4a8..b089a9cbb 100644
--- a/tools/train_net.py
+++ b/tools/train_net.py
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
     from apex.parallel import DistributedDataParallel as DDP
     from apex import amp
 except ImportError:
-    print('Use APEX for better performance via apex.amp and apex.DistributedDataParallel')
+    raise ImportError('Use APEX for better performance via apex.amp and apex.DistributedDataParallel')
 
 
 def train(cfg, local_rank, distributed):
@@ -42,9 +42,11 @@ def train(cfg, local_rank, distributed):
     optimizer = make_optimizer(cfg, model)
     scheduler = make_lr_scheduler(cfg, optimizer)
 
-    # Wrap the optimizer for fp16 training
-    use_mixed_precision = cfg.SOLVER.MIXED_PRECISION
-    amp_handle = amp.init(enabled=use_mixed_precision, verbose=False)
+    # Initialize mixed-precision training
+    use_mixed_precision = cfg.DTYPE == "float16"
+    amp_handle = amp.init(enabled=use_mixed_precision, verbose=cfg.AMP_VERBOSE)
+
+    # wrap the optimizer for mixed precision
     optimizer = amp_handle.wrap_optimizer(optimizer)
 
     if distributed: