Tooltip translator
Translate game tooltips by hovering your mouse
The text you get stuck on isn't the dialogue — it's the item descriptions, skill tooltips and menu labels scattered around the screen. Playto is a Windows app that runs alongside your game and reads the screen in real time; in cursor-follow mode it reads whatever your mouse points at and shows the translation right there — no Alt-Tab, no phone camera, no mods.
- What it does
- Reads the text under your mouse cursor, such as a tooltip, item or menu entry, and shows the translation right there over the game.
- How it reads
- OCR on the rendered screen around the cursor. No mods, no text hooks, no code injection, nothing installed into the game.
- Free or paid
- Cursor-follow is a full-version feature. Playto Lite, free on Steam, reads a fixed capture area, so you can test the reading quality on your game first. The full version is a one-time purchase, $9.99 USD on Steam (regional pricing).
- Runs on
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. Translation runs locally on your PC; typically 2 to 4 GB of spare GPU memory. A dedicated GPU with 4 GB or more (GTX 1650 class and up) runs the default model comfortably; 6 to 8 GB leaves room for the larger models. Integrated graphics still run the default model, more slowly.
- Languages
- 23, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian and the major European languages, from any one into another.
- Best for
- Menu-heavy games played with a mouse: RPGs, strategy, crafting and management games, MMOs.
Built for the text scattered around the screen
A fixed subtitle box is easy. The hard part of an untranslated game is everything else — the text that pops up wherever your cursor goes:
- Item and equipment descriptions
- Skill and ability tooltips
- Quest log and objective entries
- Menu labels, settings and crafting screens
Cursor-follow rides your mouse and reads whatever it lands near, so you check a tooltip the moment you hover it — the same motion you already make while playing. It pairs especially well with menu-heavy RPGs you play on mouse and keyboard.
Playing on a controller instead? There's no cursor to follow — pin a fixed region or use window mode, both on the in-game translation overlay page.
Why reading under a moving cursor is harder than it looks
Hovering to read sounds simple. Doing it well, on a live game, is where the work is — and it's the part Playto puts the most care into.
Where does the tooltip end?
A tooltip has no marked boundary. Read too wide and you pull in the item next to it and the stat bar behind it; read too narrow and you clip the line that mattered. So the capture area around the cursor is resizable on the fly with a shortcut — you size it to the tooltip once and it holds.
The cursor moves, and tooltips flicker in and out
A tooltip appears when you hover and vanishes when you move on, and your mouse rarely holds perfectly still. Reading has to keep up with that without re-translating the same tooltip every frame or leaving a stale one on screen after you've moved away.
Tooltip text is the dense, decision-heavy kind
Item stats, skill effects and status wording are exactly where a game hides the words that change what you do — often in small fonts and invented terms. Getting those right is more valuable, and harder, than reading a line of plain dialogue. Why a reading tool treats this as a craft is in why translating a game live is hard.
Hover, and size it to the tooltip
Move the cursor over what you want to read and Playto captures the text around it. A keyboard or mouse shortcut grows or shrinks the capture area on the fly: size it to the tooltip and nothing else — too large and it picks up unrelated text, too small and it clips the line you care about. The shortcuts are reassignable in TOOLS › Shortcuts.
For text that always appears in a set place — a dialogue band or subtitle line — there's also Fixed Region, covered on the in-game translation overlay page.
Free version or full version, by situation
Cursor-follow itself is in the full version. The free Playto Lite reads a fixed capture area, which is enough to find out whether the reading holds up on your game. These are the situations, and which version covers each.
Tooltips, items and menus wherever the mouse goes
This is what the page is about. A fixed capture area reads one spot; the text you get stuck on is everywhere else.
Full version: Cursor-follow reads whatever the mouse points at, and the capture size around the cursor adjusts with a shortcut.
A dialogue band or subtitle line that never moves
Cursor-follow is the wrong tool for that: it reads where the mouse is, not where the story is.
Full version: A fixed region does this hands-free, and it is the part Playto Lite already includes for free.
The tooltip font is tiny, stylized or drawn into the UI art
Plain OCR is built for printed text. Small decorative lettering and text baked into the panel are where it struggles.
Full version: Image mode hands the screen to a local vision model, which is how those screens get read.
You are saving words to study, not just to read
The free version keeps 100 words, 50 sentences and 5 album scenes, enough to see how it works, not enough for a long game.
Full version: The full version removes those limits and adds 8 quiz modes on top of the flashcards.
Before you start
Translation runs on your own PC rather than in the cloud, so with the default local model the text on your screen stays on your PC (Playto Cloud is optional; if you turn it on, the text being translated is sent to Playto's servers). That has a cost worth knowing before you install: the AI needs GPU memory in addition to whatever the game is using, typically 2 to 4 GB spare. The default translation model ships inside the installer; larger models download once at around 2 to 6 GB. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
It is machine translation, and it reads pixels rather than the game's own text. Tooltips in a printed font are the reliable case. Tiny or decorative lettering and text drawn into the panel art are the hard case, and Image mode exists for exactly those screens. The numbers behind the model choice are in best local LLM for real-time translation and Hy-MT2 in practice.
Every tooltip you read can become vocabulary
Reading the tooltip is the start, not the end. Each word you hover can be saved and reviewed later, so a game you played turns into vocabulary you keep. Why a reading tool cares this much about getting the text right is in why reading the screen accurately matters, and the bigger picture is in can you learn a language by playing games?
Common questions
Is there a tooltip translator for games?
Yes. Playto is a mouse tooltip translator for PC games — move the cursor over a tooltip, item or menu entry and it reads the text under it and shows the translation in place, without leaving the game.
How do I translate a game tooltip with my mouse?
Turn on cursor-follow capture and hover what you want to read. Playto captures the text around the cursor and translates it on the spot. You can grow or shrink the capture area with a shortcut so it matches the tooltip and nothing around it.
Does it translate item, skill and menu text too?
Yes — anything that shows as on-screen text. Cursor-follow is built for the scattered UI you actually get stuck on: item descriptions, skill tooltips, quest entries and menu labels.
Does cursor-follow work with a controller?
Cursor-follow needs a mouse pointer to ride, so it's the mode for mouse-and-keyboard play. On a controller there's no cursor to follow — use a fixed region on the text, or window mode, both covered on the in-game translation overlay page.
Is cursor-follow in the free version?
No. Cursor-follow is a full-version feature. Playto Lite, the free version on Steam, reads a fixed capture area you place over the text, which is the right way to check whether the reading holds up on your game before you buy.
What do I need to run it?
A 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 PC. Translation runs on your own machine, so it needs GPU memory in addition to the game, typically 2 to 4 GB spare. The default translation model ships with the installer; larger models download once, about 2 to 6 GB.
Does it need a mod or a patch?
No. Playto reads the screen from the outside — it does not modify game files, inject code, or need a per-game patch — so the same tooltip translator works across any PC game client.
Try it on your own games
Playto Lite is free on Steam and reads a fixed capture area, so you can see how the reading holds up on a game you actually play. Cursor-follow, the hover-to-read mode on this page, is in the full version.