Surfer is a Windows based, desktop software.

For Mac, Linux, or Unix users, Surfer can be run using your preferred Windows emulator. We recommend testing the functionality with our trial version before purchasing.

Minimum requirements

  • Windows 10, 11 and higher
  • 64-bit operating system
  • 1024×768 or higher monitor resolution with minimum 16-bit color depth
  • At least 500 MB free hard disk space
  • At least 512 MB RAM for simple data sets
  • 3D View: Graphics supporting OpenGL v3.2 or later.

System recommendations for best performance

  • Windows 10, 11 and higher
  • 64-bit operating system
  • 500 GB or larger hard-drive with at least 25% disk space available.
  • 16 GB RAM or larger
  • 3D View: Graphics card (e.g. NVIDIA, AMD, etc)

Additional Information

  • Gridding, contouring, and color relief operations, all of which are heavily computational, are processor reliant and are multi-threaded.  In Surfer, you will find a setting at File | Options | General | Max number of processors to use.  It should be set to use all cores.
  • For gridding and contouring operations, CPU performance is important.  The more cores the better.
  • When working consistently with very large data files, more RAM is important.
  • ​Turning off auto recovery can help performance in some cases.  It is OFF by default, but it can be enabled at File | Options | General | Save auto recovery information.
  • 3D View performance and rendering will vary in Window emulators.