What your PC needs
AnswerAside turns call audio into text on your PC, so your audio never leaves it. That takes some processing power. Before your first call, the app checks whether your PC can keep up.
Minimum requirements
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, on an Intel or AMD processor.
- A processor that passes the app’s check (below). A laptop with an Intel Core i5-11300H (4 cores, from 2021) passes easily: it transcribes both sides of a call using about a tenth of its processor. Most laptops with 4 or more cores from the last few years should be fine. Older or 2-core PCs may not be.
- 8 GB of memory. The speech model uses up to about 0.9 GB while you listen.
- About 1.5 GB of free disk space: the app, plus its speech model (about 0.7 GB, downloaded once).
- An internet connection to sign in, download the speech model, and get answers. Turning audio into text works without one.
The check
When the speech model has downloaded, the app runs a 10-second check with made-up sound (nothing is recorded) and rates your PC:
- Recommended: it transcribes both sides of a call in under half the time the call takes, turns a finished sentence into text within about a second, and uses under 30% of the processor and under 1.5 GB of extra memory.
- Slow: listening works, but answers may come a little later and the PC works harder. Settings shows what was slower.
- Not supported: the PC can’t keep up with a call (it needs more than 80% of the call’s length to transcribe it, or sentences often take over 4 seconds). Live listening is turned off and the app says why.
You can run the check again any time in Settings → Speech model. The app also checks again on a new processor.