realsub

Tutorials

Optional setups for RealSub. None of these are required — RealSub works out of the box with the bundled models and the default translation source. These guides are for people who want a translator that is faster, cheaper, or fully offline.

Status: planned. The articles below are not written yet. Watch this repository or check back after a release to see them appear.

Planned articles

1. Local LLM translation with llama-server (Sakura and friends)

Running a translation model on your own machine and pointing RealSub at it, so that no text leaves your computer at all and there is no per-request latency over the internet.

Planned scope:

installing llama.cpp / llama-server on Windows and picking a quantized model file;
VRAM budgeting when the recognition model is already resident on the same GPU;
the exact RealSub settings (Settings → Translation → source = Local, address http://127.0.0.1:8178), and how to verify it is actually being used;
realistic latency expectations, and when a local translator is not worth it.

Licensing note (important): models such as Sakura are distributed under terms that prohibit commercial use, which is why RealSub does not bundle or ship any of them. This guide will explain how to deploy a model you obtained yourself; complying with that model’s license is your responsibility.

2. Using a free Zhipu (bigmodel.cn) API key as the translation source

For users in mainland China who want lower latency than the default source, or anyone who wants to plug an OpenAI-compatible endpoint into RealSub.

Planned scope:

registering at bigmodel.cn and issuing an API key (a mainland phone number is required);
filling in Settings → Translation → source = LLM (OpenAI-compatible): API URL https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4, your key, model name glm-4-flash;
what to do when a request fails (RealSub falls back to the default source and says so);
the free tier, the model name and the endpoint are the vendor’s to change — the article will be dated and must be re-checked against the vendor’s own documentation.

RealSub does not bundle, pre-fill or proxy any third-party account. This is the same procedure summarized in FAQ Q2.

Contributing

Have a setup worth writing up? Post it in Discussions — good write-ups can be adopted here with credit.