HGiG Mode for HDR Gaming: Why It Matters and How to Enable It

You load up Cyberpunk 2077 on your PS5 in HDR mode. The night-time neon scenes either look washed out and milky, or so bright that the headlights bloom into a white blob. You tweak the in-game HDR calibration. Better, but not right. You change picture modes on your TV. Different problems. The issue is not your eyes, and it is rarely the game. It is a handshake problem between two systems that both want to do HDR tone mapping and end up doing it twice. HGiG (HDR Gaming Interest Group) is the agreement that fixes this. It is not a hardware feature you buy. It is a configuration handshake that, once set correctly, lets the console map HDR exactly to your display’s capabilities. This guide explains what is going wrong without HGiG, what it changes, and exactly how to set it up on PS5 and Xbox.

The problem HGiG solves

HDR content has more brightness and color range than any consumer display can show. A 4000-nit-mastered film has highlights brighter than any consumer TV can produce. Tone mapping is the math that compresses that range down to what the display can render: where to clip highlights, how to roll off the curve, how to preserve creative intent.

For movies and TV, this works because the source includes metadata. The disc or stream tells the TV: “this title was mastered at 4000 nits, average light level X, maximum content light level Y.” The TV uses that data to compute a sensible mapping.

Games do not work this way. A game engine renders each frame in real time with no pre-computed metadata. The console outputs an HDR signal that the TV has to map blind, frame by frame.

What happens in practice:

• The TV’s dynamic tone mapping makes its best guess from the live signal.
• The console, having no idea what the TV will do, often does its own internal tone mapping during render.
• Both systems map the same content. The result is double-mapped, often with crushed highlights, lifted blacks, or unnatural color shifts.

How HGiG fixes it

HGiG is a coordination protocol. When configured correctly:

1. The TV is set to “HGiG” picture mode (or has its dynamic tone mapping disabled in Game mode).
2. The console is told the TV’s actual peak HDR luminance (the calibration step).
3. The console tone-maps the game’s HDR output to exactly that peak.
4. The TV passes the signal through unmodified, displaying what the console rendered.

The handshake removes the double-mapping. The console knows the TV’s ceiling and respects it. The TV stops second-guessing.

For HDR gaming, this consistently produces a better image: highlights look intentional, shadow detail holds, and the look the developer designed is what you see.

How to set up HGiG on Xbox Series X/S

The Xbox approach is the cleanest:

1. Go to Settings, General, TV and display options.
2. Open Video modes, then HDR calibration screens.
3. Run the three calibration screens: maximum brightness, minimum brightness (4K), and torch test.
4. For each screen, follow the on-screen instruction to adjust the slider until the indicated feature just becomes visible (or just disappears).
5. Save the calibration.
6. On the TV, set the picture mode for the HDMI input the Xbox is on to “Game” or “HGiG” (specifics vary by brand; see below).

The Xbox now knows your TV’s exact peak luminance and HDR floor. Every HDR game that respects the system calibration tone-maps to those values.

How to set up HGiG on PS5

PS5 uses a slightly different terminology but achieves the same result:

1. Go to Settings, Screen and Video, Video Output.
2. Open Adjust HDR.
3. Walk through the three brightness sliders: bright sun, dark interior, and bright object on dark background.
4. For each, follow the prompt and stop adjusting at the point where the test image just disappears (or appears).
5. Save.

For PS5 HGiG-equivalent setup, the TV side matters: switch to a picture mode that does not apply its own dynamic tone mapping. On most modern sets, this means turning off “HDR Dynamic Tone Mapping” or selecting an “HGiG” preset directly in Game mode.

TV settings by brand

LG (C-series, G-series OLEDs, QNED). Open Picture menu, Advanced Settings, Dynamic Tone Mapping, select “HGiG.” Available on 2019 onward sets.

Sony Bravia. Game mode with the auto HDR feature configured per the on-screen guidance. Some 2023 onward Bravias add an explicit HGiG option in HDR settings.

Samsung QLED, Neo QLED. Picture mode set to Game. HDR Tone Mapping set to “HGIG” (some models call it “Static”). 2020 onward sets.

Hisense U-series, ULED. Game mode, HDR Game mode, set Dynamic HDR off.

TCL QM-series. Game mode. Dynamic Tone Mapping off (the menu sometimes labels this as “HGiG”).

If your TV does not have an explicit HGiG option, the closest equivalent is: Game mode picture preset, dynamic tone mapping disabled or set to off, peak luminance unmodified.

What HGiG does not do

A few common misunderstandings:

• HGiG does not improve HDR for movies or streaming. Those have proper metadata and dynamic tone mapping is the right approach for them. Reserve HGiG for the Game mode input or picture mode only.
• HGiG does not work with Dolby Vision games (PS5 in select titles, Xbox in many). Dolby Vision Gaming uses its own mapping pipeline. Disable HGiG (switch to Dolby Vision picture mode) for those titles.
• HGiG does not help on a non-HDR display. The whole point is correct HDR tone mapping; SDR gaming is unaffected.
• HGiG is not magic. A 400-nit budget TV will not match a 1500-nit flagship even with perfect HGiG. The setup just ensures whatever capability the TV has is used correctly.

When to turn it off

Two scenarios:

Dolby Vision Gaming. Switch to Dolby Vision picture mode and let that pipeline handle tone mapping.

Games with broken in-game HDR. A small number of titles ship with HDR implementations that ignore system calibration and override the math themselves. In these cases, HGiG can produce a worse picture than dynamic tone mapping. The fix is to disable in-game HDR (use the title in SDR) or accept that this specific title looks better with dynamic tone mapping on. Examples have included some early HDR ports and a handful of indie titles.

Why this still matters in 2026

HGiG was published in 2018 and adoption has spread to almost every modern console and HDR TV. Despite the maturity of the spec, default settings on most TVs still ship with dynamic tone mapping enabled in Game mode. The user has to know to flip it.

If you have a high-end HDR TV and a current console, taking 5 minutes to run the console calibration and set the TV to HGiG mode produces a visibly better HDR gaming experience without buying anything. For more on the gaming-TV picture, see our TV input lag vs response time explainer and the HDR formats compared guide.

Frequently asked questions