---
title: "Use the Playground"
description: "Try a GenAI API model directly in TIR, with the Playground's prompt, Advanced Parameters, and the input each model type expects."
content_type: "how-to"
product: "genai-api"
platform: "TIR"
url: "/tir/genai-api/how-to/use-the-playground/"
topic: ["use-models"]
---

# Use the Playground

Try a model in the Playground before you write any code: send it input and see its reply in TIR.
The layout depends on the model's task: a text model is a chat window, a speech model takes audio,
and an image model shows a picture back.

## Before you begin

All you need is a TIR project.

## Find a model to try

1. In TIR, open your project. In the side menu's **PRODUCTS** list, select **GenAI API**. The
   **Models** page lists every model you can use, one per row.
2. Use the search box to filter by name or author, or the **Author** and **Type** filters to narrow
   the list.
3. Select a model's row to open its own page, with **Playground**, **Usage**, **Get Code**, and,
   for Text-to-Text models, **Async History**. To move to another model, use the switcher on the
   page.

A model that shows **Request** instead of opening is out of inventory. Select **Request** to ask
for it, and TIR emails you once it is available. A model's own page also offers **Benchmarking
Request**, which asks E2E to benchmark it for your use case. Both place a support ticket.

## Send a prompt to a text model

A text model's Playground is a chat window: type a prompt in the box and send it. There is no
separate system-prompt field. Turn on **Stream** to see the reply as it is generated instead of
waiting for the whole answer.

### Set Advanced Parameters

The **Advanced Parameters** panel is a collapsible section next to the chat. Each model sets which
parameters it shows, with their own minimum, maximum, and default. For the e5-mistral-7b-instruct
model today, the panel offers:

| Parameter         | Range       | Default |
| ----------------- | ----------- | ------- |
| Top P             | 0 to 1      | 1.0     |
| Temperature       | 0 to 1      | 0.5     |
| Max Tokens        | 1 to 300    | 300     |
| Presence Penalty  | -2.0 to 2.0 | 0       |
| Frequency Penalty | -2.0 to 2.0 | 0       |

Other models have their own values, including a different Max Tokens limit.

**Top P** limits the model to its most likely next words: a lower value gives a more focused reply,
a higher value a more varied one. **Temperature** controls how random a reply is: values near 0
are more predictable, values near 1 are more creative. **Max Tokens** sets how long a reply can be.
**Presence Penalty** discourages the model from returning to a topic it already covered, and
**Frequency Penalty** discourages it from repeating the same words or phrases. A higher value on
either means less repetition.

**Max Tokens** applies to one reply and is separate from the model's context length. See [My reply
stops partway through](/tir/genai-api/troubleshooting/genai-api/#my-reply-stops-partway-through)
for how a model's context length works.

An embedding model and the moderation model, Llama Guard, have no Advanced Parameters panel.

## Try a speech-to-text model

A speech-to-text model's Playground takes audio instead of text: record it with your microphone,
or upload a `.wav`, `.flac`, or `.mp3` file. A recording you make in the Playground is captured at
16 kHz mono and sent as a WAV file. An uploaded file can be up to about 49.6 MB for Whisper Large
V3, and up to 10 MB for the other speech-to-text models.

Whisper Large V3's Playground also lets you choose **Task** (Transcribe or Translate), a
**Language**, and whether the output carries a **Return Timestamp** per word, per sentence, or not
at all. One speech-to-text model transcribes live from the microphone instead of taking a file. As
you speak, it shows a running transcript, a word count, and a **Recording** indicator, and you can
copy the transcript or download it as a `.txt` file.

## Try a text-to-speech model

A text-to-speech model that clones a voice needs a reference audio sample and its matching
reference text, as well as the text you want spoken. A simpler text-to-speech model instead needs
only the text, a **Speaker** (male or female), and a **Language**.

## Try an embedding model

An embedding model's Playground looks like the chat box, but its reply is a vector, a list of
numbers. The Playground shows it shortened, with a **Copy Embeddings** action.

## Try an image-generation model

An image-generation model's reply is shown as an image, with **Fullscreen** and **Download Image**
actions.

## Reset the conversation

A Playground conversation lasts only while the page is open. Select **Reset** to clear
it and start again.

## Read the result

A successful reply comes back in the shape its model type uses: text in the chat,
a vector for an embedding model, an image for an image model, or a transcript for a speech model.

A failed reply in a chat model shows in the chat, marked as an error, with the server's own
message. A non-chat model's failure shows as a pop-up message instead. If you try to transcribe
before you add a file, or TIR cannot reach your microphone, a message tells you what to fix.

To send many prompts at once instead of one at a time, see [Run bulk
prompts](/tir/genai-api/how-to/run-bulk-prompts/). To call the same model
from your own code, see
[Call the API with the OpenAI SDK](/tir/genai-api/how-to/call-the-api-with-the-openai-sdk/),
[Call the API with REST](/tir/genai-api/how-to/call-the-api-with-rest/), or
[Call the API with the TIR SDK](/tir/genai-api/how-to/call-the-api-with-the-tir-sdk/). For help with
any message, see [Troubleshooting TIR GenAI API](/tir/genai-api/troubleshooting/genai-api/).