Live translation of voiced dialogue and multiplayer voice chat in PC games, displayed as floating captions over any application.
A Japanese visual novel with hours of voice acting but no English release. A Korean JRPG where quest instructions appear only as spoken dialogue. A Chinese MMO where your guild coordinates raids entirely over in-game voice chat. These games exist outside your browser, which means standard tab-based translation tools never see the audio. Translext listens to any application on your computer and displays translated captions in a small window that floats above your game.
The extension hears spoken words only—not text rendered on screen. If a game displays dialogue in text boxes without voicing the lines, you need optical character recognition software instead. Translext captures system audio, detects the language automatically, streams it to a real-time speech translation service, and shows the result as live captions. No bots join your voice channel. No files leave your machine except the audio stream itself, which is not stored.
Open the Translext extension and choose Computer audio from the source menu. Chrome will prompt you to share a window, application, or entire screen; select the Entire screen tab at the top of that dialog. Below the thumbnail grid you will see a checkbox labelled Share system audio—switch it on, then click Share. Chrome can only route computer sound when paired with screen sharing, but Translext discards the video feed immediately and listens to the audio alone. A floating caption window appears on your desktop, staying on top of the game and every other application. You can drag it to a corner or second monitor and resize it by pulling the bottom-right handle.
Games running in exclusive fullscreen mode take complete control of your display and usually hide everything else, including floating windows. If your captions vanish the moment the game launches, switch to borderless windowed or windowed fullscreen in the graphics settings. This mode renders the game across your entire screen without claiming exclusive access, so the caption window remains visible on top. Performance is nearly identical on modern systems. Some older titles do not offer borderless windowed natively; third-party utilities can force the mode if you need it. Once the game runs in a window—borderless or not—you can position captions wherever they least obstruct quest markers, minimap elements, or dialogue portraits.
Game soundtracks, combat effects, footsteps, and ambient noise all reach Translext together with the dialogue. The translation model attempts to separate speech from background sound, but a loud boss theme or explosion during a voiced cutscene will degrade accuracy. Lowering music and effects volume in the game's audio mixer helps the extension isolate words. Multiplayer voice chat tends to be clearer because most voice chat applies noise suppression. Live translation always carries latency—typically two to four seconds between the spoken line and the finished caption. Fast conversational banter or overlapping voices will challenge any automatic system; expect missed words and occasional misattributions when multiple characters speak at once.
No. Translext translates only spoken audio—voiced dialogue, cutscenes, and voice chat. It does not see pixels, read on-screen text, or perform optical character recognition. If a game presents story, quests, or tutorials as unvoiced text, you need a separate OCR-based translation tool that captures and translates the rendered characters. Many visual novels and RPGs mix voiced lines with silent text boxes; Translext will handle the former but ignore the latter.
Yes. Translext captions appear in a separate floating window and do not interact with subtitles rendered inside the game. You can leave the game's native subtitles on in the original language and read both simultaneously, or turn the in-game text off to avoid clutter. Some players keep both visible to compare phrasing or catch proper nouns that translation models often mishear. The floating window sits above the game, so you control its position independently of where the game draws its own text.
Translext continues listening to system audio regardless of which window has focus. If you alt-tab to a browser, chat client, or desktop, the extension still hears your game in the background and updates captions. If the game crashes or you close it, silence replaces the audio stream and captions stop updating until sound resumes. The floating window remains on screen; you can stop the session manually or let it run if you plan to relaunch the game.
No. Computer audio mode captures only sound your computer plays through speakers or headphones—the output side of your audio system. Your microphone is an input device, so your own voice is not included in the stream unless your game or chat application echoes it back through your headset (which would indicate a local loopback or monitoring feature you should disable). Translext will hear and translate your teammates speaking to you, but not your replies to them.
Translext hears everything your system plays simultaneously. If you run a music player, browser video, and game voice chat at the same time, all three audio sources merge into one stream. The translation model will struggle to separate speech from overlapping music or dialogue from a second source. For best results, close or mute other applications when you need accurate captions of in-game voice chat. If you must keep background audio, lower its volume significantly so speech remains the dominant signal.
Translated captions and optional audio translation for online meetings, video calls and videos — in Chrome or any app on your computer. No bots to invite, nothing to upload.