Video Synchronization Issues

Configuring FS-UAE to run the emulation in sync with the display is required to enable perfect scrolling in games. However, in some cases, your desktop environment may interfere with FS-UAE’s ability to do this, and you may end up with worse performance instead of better.

Desktop Compositor

When you have a desktop environment with a compositor running, you may run into one or more of the following issues:

  • Video frame rate is not completely smooth even when full emulation-display synchronization is enabled.
  • In some cases (observed with Unity on nVIDIA), the frame rate is about halved.

If you have one of these problems, you can try one of the following workarounds:

  • Running FS-UAE in fullscreen may help or completely fix the problem.
  • Temporarily disable compositing (for example in KDE).
  • Temporarily use another window manager / desktop environment.
  • Don’t use video synchronization (but then you won’t get perfect scrolling in games either).

Ubuntu With 3D Acceleration

Video synchronization @50Hz does not seem to work properly in Window mode with Compiz/Unity and compositing / 3D acceleration enabled, at least not with the proprietary nVIDIA drivers. Run FS-UAE in fullscreen to get smooth scrolling with 50Hz modes.

You may also need to do the following: Install CompizConfig Settings Manager, open it, click on General/Composite, and make sure Unredirect Fullscreen Windows is ticked.

Display Synchronization Options

You may get more stable video synchronization by trying out the different values for the video_sync_method option.

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