Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Exclusive fullscreen (FSE) is a mode in which a program, most often a game, takes full control of the screen and does not let other windows draw on top of it. Because of this, overlays from third-party apps work in a limited way and with problems in this mode.
A game fills the whole screen, and the window of another program, for example an FPS counter or a chat, simply does not appear on top of it. The reason is that the game runs in exclusive fullscreen mode. Related terms, for example Windows Voice Access, are covered in the glossary of speech recognition terms.
What the term exclusive fullscreen mode means
Exclusive fullscreen (FSE) is a mode in which a program, most often a game, takes full control of the screen and does not let other windows draw on top of it. In the words of the source (DirectX Developer Blog), Fullscreen Exclusive mode gives the game full ownership of the screen and of how the graphics card's resources are shared out. Because of this full ownership of the screen and graphics card resources, other programs have no way to show their window or interface element on top of the game. The definition says “most often a game”, so the term describes a way a program works in general, not only one part of the game industry.
| Term | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusive fullscreen mode | a program mode, most often for games, in which it takes full control of the screen and does not let other windows draw on top of it | third-party app overlays in exclusive fullscreen mode (FSE) work in a limited way and with problems; this is one of the key drawbacks of this mode |
| System language settings | an OS settings section that determines the default language of the interface, input and speech recognition | for accurate dictation the recognition language must match the language of speech |
| Group policy for speech services | a corporate Windows setting that can restrict or turn off voice services on work computers | the message “voice services are managed by your organization” means that the function was turned off by a group policy |
| Notification area | a part of the Windows taskbar or the macOS menu bar with icons of background services and their statuses | the recording status of the dictation app is often shown in the notification area |
An example from dictation
A direct consequence of how this mode is built is that overlays from third-party apps in exclusive fullscreen mode (FSE) work in a limited way and with problems. The source calls this one of the key drawbacks of the mode: a program that normally shows its element on top of other windows cannot do so, because in FSE the screen is taken up entirely by the game itself, not by the system window layer where such elements are normally drawn.
Where this matters for Potok and where it does not
Potok is a cloud service: speech recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet. Potok has no text insertion into an input field inside fullscreen games: it inserts recognized text into the active text field, and fullscreen mode, by its design, does not let third-party programs interact with the game window in this way. One Potok subscription covers both the dictation app and the Telegram bot @potok_now_bot for recordings and voice messages.
Frequently asked questions
Because in this mode the game takes full control of the screen and does not let other windows draw on top of it. Limited and problematic work of third-party overlays in exclusive fullscreen mode is one of the key drawbacks of this mode.
How to start
Potok is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. For two weeks everything is open for free, after that 2500 words per week without paying. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokOne subscription, two tools: dictation in any program on your computer and @potok_now_bot in Telegram, which transcribes voice messages, audio and video.
Built-in dictation and Potok
| Tool | Where it works | Russian language | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows voice typing (Win+H) | Windows 10 and 11 | Windows 11 only | Microsoft cloud, does not work offline |
| macOS Dictation | macOS | yes | on the device or on Apple servers |
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | primary language | cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline |
Primary sources: devblogs.microsoft.com · support.microsoft.com