Installation

System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems

Windows: Windows 10, Windows 11, or Windows Server
macOS: Available — contact the dBSea team for details
Linux: Available (Debian/Ubuntu) — contact the dBSea team for details

Hardware Requirements

Component	Minimum	Recommended
RAM	8 GB	16 GB+
Storage	1 GB for the application	1 GB + space for project files (see below)
Graphics	OpenGL 3.2 (core profile) compatible	OpenGL 4.x compatible
CPU	4 cores	8+ cores

CPU and RAM are the most important components for dBSea performance. All acoustic propagation calculations run on the CPU, and large models with many frequencies, depth points, or high-resolution grids consume significant RAM. More cores and more memory directly translate to faster solve times and the ability to handle larger scenarios.

Many cores or fast cores? Both work well. dBSea’s calculations parallelise naturally across whatever cores are available, and they also benefit from higher per-core clock speeds. There is no preference either way — a CPU with many moderate cores and a CPU with fewer fast cores will both perform well. If you are specifying a workstation, choose whichever suits your other requirements (budget, other software, form factor) and dBSea will take advantage of what’s there. For a true workhorse, the recommendation is simply a powerful CPU.

Stay on the latest version. A lot of ongoing development goes into improving solver performance, including SIMD optimisations where possible. Version 3.0.17 in particular delivered significant performance improvements. Running the latest release is one of the easiest ways to get more out of your existing hardware.

GPU requirements are modest. The GPU is used only for rendering the 3D visualisation — it is not involved in any acoustic computations. We have evaluated GPU acceleration several times, but the algorithms dBSea uses do not map well to GPU hardware, so the calculations are best run on the CPU. Investing in a powerful CPU will deliver far more benefit than a high-end graphics card. Even a lightweight modern graphics card will handle dBSea’s display without difficulty. The key requirement is driver support for OpenGL 3.2 (core profile) or later; if your drivers do not support this, dBSea will not launch. Updating to the latest graphics drivers from your card manufacturer will resolve most issues.

Disk Space for Projects

Project files created with dBSea can be much larger than the application itself. Storing calculated sound levels consumes significant disk space. Recent versions also keep large result arrays in memory-mapped files, so a big solve can spill to disk rather than needing all of its data in RAM; allow free disk space of the order of the project’s result size. To manage file sizes, consider adjusting the number of source slices, range points, depth points, frequencies, and grid points as appropriate for your project.

Windows Installation

Download the dBSea installer from dbsea.co.uk/download
Run the installer (dBSea 3D-<version>.msi, e.g. dBSea 3D-3.0.25.msi)
If a User Account Control dialog appears, click Yes to allow the installation
Choose a destination folder or accept the default
Click Finish when the installation completes

dBSea can be launched from the Windows Start menu.

There is no need to uninstall an existing version before installing a new one. The new version will overwrite the previous installation. The .zip offered on the download page contains the same .msi, for networks that block direct download of installer files.

dBSea v3 and v2 can be installed side by side on the same machine. However we do recommend that all users upgrade to v3 to take advantage of the latest updates, new features and bug fixes.

Licence Activation

dBSea v3 uses cloud-based licensing. See the Licensing page for details on:

Activating a new licence
Trial licences
Managing your licence

Updates

dBSea checks for updates automatically. When a new release is available, you will be prompted to download it. You can also check for updates manually via Help → Check for updates.

Troubleshooting

OpenGL Issues

If dBSea fails to start with graphics-related errors:

Verify your graphics card supports OpenGL 3.2 or later
Update your graphics drivers to the latest version

Network/Firewall Issues

dBSea requires internet access for licence validation. If you are behind a corporate firewall or proxy, ensure that connections to the licence server are permitted. Contact your IT department if you experience connectivity issues.

Getting Help

If you encounter problems not covered here:

Check the FAQ for common issues
View the application log via Tools → View dBSea log. Log files are kept in %LOCALAPPDATA%\dBSea Ltd\Logs on Windows, ~/Library/dBSea Ltd/Logs on macOS and ~/.dBSea/dBSea Ltd/Logs on Linux
Contact support via the contact page with your log file attached