Turning off V-sync?

[DoubleJG]

Will that smooth things out for me? Or worsen it?

[Parn]

Your framerate may improve, but you will have screen tearing. V-Sync simply forces the video card to wait until an entire frame of the picture is drawn before displaying it... if it's off, it'll draw as it goes. Both can still get slowdown though, if the video card can't render things fast enough.

The easiest way to spot the difference between off and on is to watch the screen fade in and out with the Sonic Team logo when you first start the game. Watch real closely and you'll see lots of tearing with V-Sync off. It's not nearly that blatant when you're actually playing the game, but it is annoying depending on how nitpicky you are. I always keep V-Sync on.