Just to preface, for this guide to be relevant to you, you must currently be able to hit a consistent 60 frames per second in typical SOPFFO gameplay. You must also be in possession of a high refresh rate monitor, preferably with g-sync/freesync capabilities (note for nvidia users: keep in mind only GTX 1000 series (and, by extension, all RTX cards) and above have built-in Freesync support. Not sure about the equivalent requirements for AMD or Intel users, but perhaps they're less restrictive, who knows.

Second, even if your monitor supports higher frequencies than 120hz, I highly recommend setting your monitor specifically to 120hz in your drivers. Since the game will be internally locked at 60fps before frame generation does its thing, 60fps being precisely half of 120hz, it divides perfectly, which ensures optimal frame pacing.

As many of you are aware, Stranger Of Paradise is a technical enigma. Despite being a 2022 title, it struggles to match the visual fidelity of, say, an early PS4-era game. Now, this isn't a critique. Team Ninja, and Koei Tecmo itself, used to be known for cutting edge graphics back in the day, during the reign of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, two of Team Ninja's most popular series. But despite their former glory, their graphics technology is blatantly falling behind the curve these days. Fortunately they make up for this with consistently brilliant gameplay, which often makes their games worth spending hundreds of hours in, even if they're not necessarily at the forefront of video game graphics tech these days. The thing with Stranger Of Paradise in is, despite barely managing to match the visual fidelity of Nioh 2, a years-older Team Ninja release, they seem to have taken two steps backwards in terms of technical optimization. Stutters and dips galore. High refresh rate users in particular may have been highly disappointed in its effectiveness in this game, where you may be able to hit 120fps with graphics setting sacrifices, but the game dips to 30-40fps during cluttered moments, particularly during or after soul bursts (the cool crystal finishing move thingies). But my friends, if you have a measly seven dollars to spare, this is now an issue of the past.

Step 1: Properly configure "G-SYNC / FreeSync / Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)".

Personally I have an Nvidia GPU, so here are my proper VRR settings in Nvidia control panel:

first of all, make sure any sort of 'freesync' or 'adaptive sync' or whatnot is enabled in your monitor's built-in settings menu.

manage 3d settinsg > global settings > make sure 'Triple Buffering' is off.

next, Nvidia Control Panel > Display > Set up G-SYNC >

1. Apply Following changes.

Select "Enable for windowed and full screen mode"

3. Display Specific settings.

Enable "Enable settings for the selected display model".

apply settings.

note - you may see an informational text saying 'Selected Display is not validated as G-SYNC compatible'. Ignore it. as long as your monitor is advertised as 'G-Sync Compatible'/'Freesync Compatible' etc., everything should work as intended.


Step 2: Purchase 'Lossless Scaling' (USD$6.99).

Universal LSFG Guide (AMD/Intel/NVIDIA). If you have an Nvidia GPU, there are a few additional changes further down below to ensure optimal results. But some information in this Universal Guide is still relevant to Nvidia users.

1: Set your game to borderless fullscreen (if the option does not exist or work then windowed, it does not work with exclusive fullscreen)

2: Set "Scaling Mode" to "Auto" and "Scaling Type" to "Off" (this ensures you're playing at native & not upscaling, since the app also has upscaling functionality which you can use if you want. Note for nvidia users (RTX owners) still choosing to use this version of the guide: in the graphics settings of Stranger of Paradise, use the game's DLSS setting rather than any sort of image reconstruction technologies within Lossless Scaling, like FSR or LSR. But I will say, these can be very useful if you're playing other games/emulators that happen to have limited or non-existent anti-aliasing implementations. Lossless Scaling is really flexible with that kinda thing. It can seamlessly inject FSR or LSR image reconstruction and/or Frame Generation into most things you throw at it. With SOPFFO in particular, the in game DLSS: "Quality' looks and performs spectacularly for me (RTX 3060Ti + R5 5600X + 32GB DDR4-3600) but if you have a lower-end RTX card like a 3050 or 2060, DLSS Balanced and DLSS Performance still look stunning compared to SOPFFO's non-RTX offerings, a primitive, outdated FSR 1.0 implementation with severe aliasing and artifacting, and a singular non-image reconstruction-based anti-aliasing setting, which is only an 'On/Off' toggle, it appears to be a particularly mediocre version of FXAA post-process anti-aliasing if I were to guess.

Now click scale then click on your game. You can also setup a keybind to do it. or, in lossless scaling, look for 'filters'. add/navigate to SOPFFO.exe. doing this particular method allows you to set up a timer that delays the initiation of LSFG when it detects the Stranger of Paradise EXE running on your PC. If, for whatever reason, you want it to wait 30 seconds before engaging, for instance.

jaw knee's notes:

--- I recommend also scrolling all the way down in Lossless Scaling, down to the 'Legacy' section, and enabling the 'VRR support' toggle. I don't know if this does anything but it feels like it helped in some unclear way. ----

--- I also recommend enabling the 'Draw FPS' option. This will add a small, unobtrusive FPS counter in the top-left of your game window. This is of course up to personal preference, but, when combined with the Steam overlay's built-in fps counter, it can provide as a helpful tool to determine if you set everything up correctly - since the game will internally be running at 60fps, Steam's FPS counter will stay at 60. Then LSFG's FPS counter will show it's own independent FPS counter, which, if everything was set up properly, should report a perfect 120. ----



NVIDIA LSFG Guide

1: Set your monitor to its highest supported hertz Jaw Knee's recommendation: 120hz. Nvidia Control Panel > Change resolution > PC> '(native)' > Refresh rate: 120Hz

2. Check your game and find what frame you can hit consistently & cap it there (Jaw Knee's note: no need to set a dedicated frame rate cap for Stranger of Paradise in Nvidia control panel, the game's built in 60fps frame rate limit option works fine and doesn't interfere with any of the frame generation witchcraft we're up to)

3: Add LosslessScaling.exe to NVIDIA's control panel and add a framerate cap that's double your capped in game FPS. Recommended cap: 120.

Bonus Tips

Some people found better results adding Lossless Scaling to their driver software then enabling forced v-sync on it: Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3D settings > Global settings > vertical sync ON. or, if you'd prefer not to globally enable vertical sync, alternatively just do: Program Settings (SOPFFO.exe) > Vertical Sync > On.

in the graphics settings of Stranger of Paradise, use the game's DLSS setting rather than FSR 1.0 or Anti Aliasing on.

Overlays can interfere with Lossless Scaling. Jaw Knee's perspective - no issues so far with both Geforce Experience overlay and Steam overlay enabled. Have not experimented with Discord overlay or any other overlays, so your mileage may vary.

Playing with controller offers a better experience than mouse as latency penalties are much harder to perceive.