GPU Acceleration
Local transcription with Whisper models can use your GPU to significantly reduce transcription time. OSTT supports Metal on macOS, CUDA on NVIDIA Linux hardware, and Vulkan on AMD and Intel Linux hardware.
GPU acceleration has no effect on cloud providers — it only applies to local models.
Backends
| Backend | Hardware | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Metal | Apple Silicon and Intel Mac | macOS |
| CUDA | NVIDIA GPUs | Linux x86_64 |
| Vulkan | AMD and Intel GPUs | Linux x86_64 |
macOS — Metal
Metal is enabled automatically on every macOS build. No setup is needed. When a local model runs, OSTT uses the GPU without any configuration.
Verify it is active in the logs:
ostt logsLook for:
local transcription: Metal GPU acceleration enabledLinux — NVIDIA (CUDA)
The CUDA build is available for Linux x86_64 and requires:
- An NVIDIA GPU
- NVIDIA driver (
libcuda.so) - cuBLAS runtime (
libcublas.so)
The install script detects usable NVIDIA CUDA support automatically and installs the CUDA build:
curl -fsSL https://ostt.ai/install | bashTo opt out of GPU detection and install the CPU build:
curl -fsSL https://ostt.ai/install | bash -s -- --no-gpuVerify CUDA is active:
ostt logsLook for:
local transcription: CUDA GPU acceleration enabledLinux — AMD and Intel (Vulkan)
The Vulkan build is available for Linux x86_64 and works on AMD and Intel GPUs via the Mesa driver stack. libvulkan.so.1 ships with Mesa on most graphical Linux installs, so no additional runtime dependencies are typically needed.
The install script detects AMD and Intel GPUs via lspci and installs the Vulkan build automatically:
curl -fsSL https://ostt.ai/install | bashTo opt out of GPU detection and install the CPU build:
curl -fsSL https://ostt.ai/install | bash -s -- --no-gpuVerify Vulkan is active:
ostt logsLook for:
local transcription: Vulkan GPU acceleration enabledManual Package Selection
If you install from .deb, .rpm, or direct release archives instead of the installer, choose the artifact that matches your hardware:
| Hardware | Debian/Ubuntu | Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE | Archive |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU or Linux ARM64 | ostt_latest_amd64.deb or ostt_latest_arm64.deb | ostt-latest.x86_64.rpm or ostt-latest.aarch64.rpm | ostt-<target>.tar.gz |
| NVIDIA GPU with CUDA runtime libraries | ostt-cuda_latest_amd64.deb | ostt-cuda-latest.x86_64.rpm | ostt-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-cuda.tar.gz |
| AMD/Intel GPU with Vulkan runtime library | ostt-vulkan_latest_amd64.deb | ostt-vulkan-latest.x86_64.rpm | ostt-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-vulkan.tar.gz |
| macOS | Homebrew or macOS archive | n/a | ostt-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz or ostt-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz |
Run uname -m to check your CPU architecture. CUDA and Vulkan artifacts are currently Linux x86_64 only.
Detection Priority
On Linux, if both NVIDIA and AMD/Intel GPUs are present, the install script selects the CUDA build. CUDA is faster for NVIDIA hardware than Vulkan.
CPU Fallback
The CPU build works on all hardware. If you install the GPU build and the required runtime libraries are not present, the binary will fail to start. In that case, reinstall with --no-gpu or install the required driver packages.