Requirements
Echophrase runs on a wide range of hardware. The default model is tuned to feel
fast on a mid-range gaming GPU; a smaller “Lite” variant runs on machines with
no dedicated GPU at all.
System
| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|
| OS | Windows 10 (22H2) | Windows 11 |
| OS (macOS) | macOS 13 (Apple Silicon) — Metal in testing | macOS 14+ |
| OS (Linux) | Ubuntu 22.04 (CPU only) | Ubuntu 24.04 |
| RAM | 4 GB | 8 GB+ |
| Disk | 2 GB free | 4 GB free |
| GPU | None — CPU works | DirectX 12 GPU on Windows |
GPU acceleration
Echophrase auto-detects the fastest available device on first launch — there
is nothing to configure.
| Platform | Acceleration | What you need |
|---|
| Windows | DirectML | Any DirectX 12 GPU (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm) |
| macOS | Metal (in testing) | Apple Silicon, macOS 13.3+ |
| Linux | CPU | GPU acceleration on the roadmap |
We dropped CUDA support to escape “requirements hell” — matching the right
NVIDIA driver, the right CUDA Toolkit version, and the right cuDNN version
turned every install into a multi-step yak-shave. DirectML is built into
Windows, runs on every modern GPU regardless of vendor, and gives us the
same wins for transcription workloads with none of the install pain. Native
CPU and Apple Metal cover the rest.
Supported models
Pulled directly from the desktop app’s model registry — these are the exact
models that ship today.
| Model | Parameters | Min VRAM | Recommended GPU | Realtime speed |
|---|
| Parakeet-TDT 0.6B (default) | 0.6B | 6 GB | RTX 3080 or better | 12× |
| Parakeet Lite | 120M | None (GPU optional) | Any modern GPU, even integrated | 2–5× |
| T5-Mini Grammar (post-process) | Mini | — | Any GPU | — |
Recommended NVIDIA card
For the default Parakeet-TDT model we recommend an RTX 3080 or better.
Parakeet Lite runs comfortably on integrated graphics or any older NVIDIA
card — you do not need a dedicated GPU to use Echophrase.
More models on the way. We’re evaluating additional Whisper variants and
multilingual voice models. Want to vote on what ships next?
Join the Discord. 