Making the most of a fast PC
A capable machine is already set up correctly. Here is what it buys you, and the one thing it does not.
UPDATED 2026-07-28
If your machine has a decent graphics card and memory to spare, Blabb is already using it. Cleanup runs on the graphics card by default, so there is nothing to switch on and no tuning to do before you start.
What the extra speed is worth spending on#
A fast machine does not make Blabb noticeably faster at the settings you already have — cleanup at half a second instead of one is not something you can feel. What it does is make the more expensive options cheap enough to use.
The heavier cleanup styles. Clear, Professional and Friendly do more work than Fix typos. On a capable machine that difference is small enough not to notice, so if you have been staying on a light style for speed, there is no reason to. Pick the style that produces the writing you want and stop thinking about the cost. See Cleanup styles.
A specialist vocabulary, if your field has one. Medical and legal Transcription modes add a spelling pass and extra context for the cleanup model. On a fast machine that cost disappears into the noise. See Medical and legal vocabulary.
Keep Blabb running#
The cleanup model unloads after 15 minutes idle and reloads on your next dictation. Leaving Blabb open does not prevent that — the timer runs whether or not the window is showing — but a fast machine pays the reload quickly, and keeping Blabb running does save you starting the application from cold on top of it. Settings → General → Start Blabb with Windows makes that automatic.
Memory is the reason to leave it running rather than the reason not to. With both models loaded — about 2.2 GB for cleanup and about 1.5 GB for speech — Blabb holds several gigabytes, and the idle unload hands roughly 2 GB of that back until you dictate again. On a well-specified machine that is memory you had spare, and holding it is what keeps the next dictation quick.
What a fast PC does not do#
It does not improve accuracy. This is the part people get wrong, so it is worth being blunt about: the speech model on a top-end workstation is the same model doing the same job as on a five-year-old laptop, and it produces the same words. Faster silicon gets you those words sooner. It does not get you better ones.
Accuracy comes from the audio going in. A close microphone, a room that is not fighting you, and speaking normally will change your output far more than any hardware upgrade. If the words are wrong, do not go shopping — go to Choosing and placing your microphone.
Note
There is no performance configuration to find. Blabb picks the models and decides whether the work runs on your graphics card or your processor. A fast machine is already being used.
See also#
- Cleanup styles — what each style does to your words.
- Medical and legal vocabulary — specialist terms, at a cost a fast machine will not notice.
- Choosing and placing your microphone — where accuracy actually comes from.