Your captions are either invisible, blocking gameplay, or perfect. Here's how to land in the third category.
Set Up Captions in OBSBad caption settings cost you viewers. Too small, they're useless on a phone screen. Too large, they cover the minimap. Wrong color, they vanish against a bright background. Getting this right is the difference between captions that actually serve your international audience and captions that are technically present but functionally ignored.
StreamTranslate renders through an OBS browser source, which gives you full layout control. This guide covers every setting worth tuning.
Center-bottom is the default for most setups and works for the majority of games. It clears the HUD (which most games place at corners) and sits outside the primary action zone for most genres. This is where viewers naturally expect subtitles based on every TV show and film they've ever watched.
Upper-center works well for games where the bottom portion of the screen is permanently occupied — first-person shooters with centered crosshairs or racing games with persistent bottom UI. Place captions above the action without touching the top-corner minimap.
Lower-third left is a good option for streamers with a face cam in the bottom-right. It keeps captions clear of the cam overlay without centering text over gameplay.
Before going live, use OBS's preview mode and check your layout at 1080p and at 480p (simulated mobile). Captions that look fine at 1080p often overlap critical HUD elements on smaller displays.
System fonts work fine — don't overthink it. The best-performing options are system-ui, Arial, and Roboto. Avoid serif fonts entirely; they lose readability at caption sizes in motion. Avoid decorative fonts unless your brand specifically calls for them.
Size: for a 1920x1080 stream, 26–32px is the standard range. Below 24px becomes unreadable on mobile. Above 36px starts eating gameplay real estate. For streams targeting primarily mobile viewers, go to the high end of that range (30–34px).
Line length matters as much as size. Cap caption lines at roughly 42 characters to avoid text that requires lateral eye movement to follow. StreamTranslate handles line wrapping automatically within its overlay, but it's worth verifying in preview.
A semi-transparent background behind caption text is non-negotiable for gaming content. Games have wildly varying backgrounds — bright skies, dark dungeons, snow, explosion effects — and pure white or pure black text without a background will vanish against matching surfaces. A subtle dark pill (rgba(0,0,0,0.6)) or a slight white frosted background keeps captions legible against anything.
For multi-language streams where you're showing both the original language and the translation simultaneously, use two distinct colors. A common and effective pairing: original text in white (#ffffff), translated text in StreamTranslate's brand green (#ffffff) or a neutral light blue (#a8d8ff). Avoid using red or orange — too visually aggressive and associated with alerts.
Fade-in animations add polish but must be short. A 150–200ms fade is smooth; anything longer creates a lag effect where the caption appears noticeably after the speech it's transcribing. StreamTranslate's overlay renders with minimal latency by default — don't counteract that with slow CSS animations.
Keep captions persistent long enough to be read at a reasonable pace. A good rule: display duration should be no less than the word count divided by 2.5 (words per second). StreamTranslate handles timing automatically, but if you're building a custom overlay, this is the formula.
Use OBS's Studio Mode with a preview window. Test in actual gameplay for 5 minutes and watch for moments where captions overlap the minimap, health bar, or kill feed. Also preview at a simulated mobile size — what looks fine at 1080p often overlaps HUD elements at lower resolutions.
White text on a semi-transparent dark background is the most universally readable. For dual-language displays, pair white (original) with green or light blue (translated). Always use a background — relying on outline alone fails against complex game backgrounds.
Short fades (150–200ms) are fine and add polish. Anything longer makes captions feel delayed relative to the speech they represent. Avoid sliding animations — they're distracting and harder to read mid-motion.
Long enough for an average reader to read it comfortably — roughly word count divided by 2.5 seconds minimum. StreamTranslate manages this timing automatically. If building a custom overlay, err on the side of leaving text up slightly longer rather than shorter.