Serum 2 rendering issues

[RikKoedoot]

Hi, thanks for taking the effort of writing this guide, it was really helpful.

I have found an issue when using serum 2, there are some rendering issues, I have recorded them into two videos.

https://youtu.be/5YUiyZATvlQ
This first one showcases when using serum 2, a ghost of the VST appears in the top left corner, this does not update at all and does not respond to interactions. The plugin window itself is fully usable, but with a lot of black boxes covering or flickering over UI elements.

https://youtu.be/Zozho9A5NMs
This second one is a video, showcasing that the ghost window also covers other applications. Not shown in the video is that it even stays after Serum 2 is deleted in FL Studio, and even stays around when FL Studio gets closed the intended way. The only way of getting rid of it is by force closing the bottles instance.

I did try look into this issue, and found this GitHub issue, covering what seems to be a similar issue, but without a fix yet.

For the bottles setup, I have tried the settings from your guide, also tried to change the windows version from 11 to 7, as per the other issue on this repo, I have also tried enabling and disabling discrete graphics, and disabling DXVK, VKD3D, and LatencyFlex, as per the GitHub issue linked above.

My system is using Fedora Linux 42 (Workstation Edition) x86_64 with Gnome 48.3, If i need to provide more info, I'd be glad to provide it.

[Torbuntu]

Sounds like the same issue I encountered with FL Mobile Rack and FL Studio Mobile. I left a small note about that here.

Which version of wine are you using in your bottle setup? That would be the only thing I could think of to try changing regarding the ghost duplicate.

As for the black boxes and flickering I saw that as well when I tried the Serum2 demo but I haven't been able to locate a workaround for it myself.

[RikKoedoot]

Ah, right. I was using that version of wine. Will try to roll back next time. As for the black boxes, I think I read that it's dxvk that doesn't support partial presentation, which is because it uses a new version of VSTGUI. See this issue comment: robbert-vdh/yabridge#413 (comment) I'll try to see if I can try your and their suggestion. I'll share my findings when I tried. Best regards, Rik Koedoot

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On 8 Aug 2025 at 22:01 +0200, Tor (torbuntu) ***@***.***>, wrote: Torbuntu left a comment (Torbuntu/fl-studio-linux-setup#2) Sounds like the same issue I encountered with FL Mobile Rack and FL Studio Mobile. I left a small note about that here. Which version of wine are you using in your bottle setup? That would be the only thing I could think of to try changing regarding the ghost duplicate. As for the black boxes and flickering I saw that as well when I tried the Serum2 demo but I haven't been able to locate a workaround for it myself. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[RikKoedoot]

As mentioned here: robbert-vdh/yabridge#413 (comment)

The latest serum update has improved quite a lot, it is a lot more usable. Only a bit of flickering when moving the plugin window, and when playing notes.

[RikKoedoot]

In FL Studio, I went to serum 2, Plugin options, Processing, enabled external window and make bridged, this makes serum run in a seperate window. this almost entirely gets rid of the remaining flickering issue, making it more usable. the biggest downside is that keyboard interactions do not work anymore when serum is in focus. an upside is, when serum crashes, it does not crash fl studio anymore.

Other issues I am having are serum related, and thus I'll leave them in the yabridge issue, as one of the devs is reading that one aswell.

[RikKoedoot]

Quick addition, I found after trying again, that the last solution was quite unreliable for some reason, found out just making serum a detached window is easier, and allows for keyboard input

[Torbuntu]

Does this still happen when using ge-proton10-28 or a similar ge-proton runner?

[RikKoedoot]

When running a fresh bottle with the setup from the readme, fl studio gives the error shown above, while using ge-proton 10-28

[RikKoedoot]

Using kron4ek-wine-proton-10.0-3.amd64 serum does work normally. there are some rendering issues that can be resolved by detaching, when detached the window does go black when it is not the window in focus, will flicker a bit and then show normally when regaining focus.

[RikKoedoot]

kron4ek-wine-11.0-rc3-amd64 works better for serum 2. It makes serum usable while it is not detached, there are still some rendering issues in serum itself, which are in all other serum in wine setups too, and the window has some artifacts while being dragged around. but otherwise this feels as the best setup for serum.

things that do not render correctly (most likely only fixable by the serum 2 developers):

• envelope, lfo, and other graphs
• note modulation range ring (the blue ring around knobs that get modulated)
• when dragging a modulation source to a knob, the indicator next to your mouse flickers with a black box

performance wise i have not noticed much difference between running through wine or native windows.

[ShaggyLorean]

Serum 2 and Nexus and a few more plugins are not even rendering on me.

I tried proton-ge, same result, tried kron4ek-wine-11.0, same result, tried kron4ek-proton-wine10, same result

[RikKoedoot]

Which version of serum 2 are you using? And you could try this: "In FL Studio, I went to serum 2, Plugin options, Processing, enabled external window and make bridged"

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On 16 Jan 2026 at 07:08 +0100, Göktürk Yağız Arslan ***@***.***>, wrote: ShaggyLorean left a comment (Torbuntu/fl-studio-linux-setup#2) Serum 2 and Nexus and a few more plugins are not even rendering on me. image.png (view on web) I tried proton-ge, same result, tried kron4ek-wine-11.0, same result, tried kron4ek-proton-wine10, same result — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[ShaggyLorean]

Not only happening on Serum 2, but Serum 1 as well, tried three different versions of Serum 2, still same
tried bridged and external windows as well, only bridged makes my FL crash and bridget + external is the same thing, doesn't work.

[RikKoedoot]

What exact version numbers did you try, because if you tried some older versions, they'll have some issues, the latest few builds of serum 2 have a few fixes to make it more usable.

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On 17 Jan 2026 at 04:01 +0100, Göktürk Yağız Arslan ***@***.***>, wrote: ShaggyLorean left a comment (Torbuntu/fl-studio-linux-setup#2) Not only happening on Serum 2, but Serum 1 as well, tried three different versions of Serum 2, still same tried bridged and external windows as well, only bridged makes my FL crash and bridget + external is the same thing, doesn't work. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[ShaggyLorean]

Tried Serum v2.0.19, v2.0.22, v1.36b8