Requirements
Supported platforms and the minimum disk, memory and CPU shardreel needs on macOS, Linux and WSL2.
shardreel runs on Apple Silicon Macs and on Linux, including Windows through WSL2. Intel Macs are not supported.
Hardware and storage
shardreel checks these at startup and shows them in Settings > System. Below the minimum for disk or RAM, it refuses to start a job. Fewer than 4 cores only shows a warning.
| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
Free disk (in ~/.clipforge) | 10 GB | 30 GB |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| CPU cores | 4 (warning only) | 8 |
| GPU | None on Linux (slow). Apple Silicon on a Mac | NVIDIA GPU on Linux |
The Whisper model alone is about 1.6 GB. Source videos, the analysis cache and rendered clips need the rest. See Free disk space.
What runs where
| Stage | macOS (Apple Silicon) | Linux and WSL2 |
|---|---|---|
| Transcription | Metal GPU | CPU, or CUDA with --features cuda |
| Encoding | VideoToolbox, always on | NVENC if nvidia-smi works and ffmpeg has h264_nvenc, otherwise libx264 or libx265 |
| Default output folder | ~/Movies/clipforge | ~/Videos/clipforge |
| Software encoding option | Hidden, hardware is always used | Available |
Intel and AMD GPU encoding (VAAPI) is not supported.
Software
| Tool | Why it is needed |
|---|---|
| Rust toolchain | Builds the backend |
| bun | Builds the web UI |
| cmake | Builds whisper.cpp |
| ffmpeg with libass | Decoding, filters, encoding, and burned-in captions |
| yt-dlp | Downloading videos from URLs |
Install steps for each platform are in Getting started.
Edit on GitHubSpotted a mistake? Suggest a change and open a pull request.