HDR10+ GAMING HDR10+ GAMING Standard

What HDR10+ GAMING is

HDR10+ GAMING is a standard built on HDR10+ and aimed at games. It was developed by HDR10+ Technologies LLC and unveiled at CES 2022, with Samsung announcing its first products on December 23, 2021 in London. Samsung described it as a way to give players low latency, variable refresh rate, and support for over 120Hz, along with automated HDR calibration. CEPro's CES report adds that the format uses HDR10+ Source Side Tone Mapping (SSTM), so the game, not the TV, does the tone mapping against what the display reports.

The 2023 French coverage of the first game release summarized the design as three pillars: VRR, automated HDR calibration, and low-latency tone mapping. Those map to three separate problems that gamers hit with plain HDR10. The game does not know the display's limits, so highlights clip or dim. The TV's own tone mapping adds processing delay. And the TV and game both need manual picture settings that most players never touch.

How it works

The calibration step is a handshake. When a game loads, it queries the display and optimizes its HDR output in real time to that panel, while the display is placed into what Samsung calls a true reference mode, and CEPro describes as a low latency reference mode. The result is that the player does not walk through an HDR calibration screen in each game. Because tone mapping happens in the source (see source versus display tone mapping), the display can skip its own dynamic processing, which is where the latency saving comes from. Samsung and the French coverage both frame the aim as accurate HDR at low latency.

The refresh rate side is ordinary HDMI VRR. CEPro says the standard can support variable refresh at 4K 120fps, and at 120 fps a frame lasts about 8.3 ms (1,000 divided by 120), against 16.7 ms at 60 fps. That is why the standard assumes an HDMI 2.1 class link; see VRR and 4K at 120Hz for the bandwidth side. The sources disagree on whether 120 is a cap: Samsung says over 120Hz, the 2023 French coverage says VRR goes up to 120 Hz, and CEPro says 4K 120fps, so treat a higher figure as unconfirmed.

HDR10+ GAMING vs Dolby Vision gaming

The closest comparison is Dolby Vision gaming. Xbox launched it on Series X|S on September 28, 2021, with more than 100 next-gen HDR titles optimized and Dolby Vision working with ALLM, VRR, and up to 120FPS depending on the TV. It is a console feature. HDR10+ GAMING is the reverse in 2026: the HDR10+ Technologies FAQ states that it is currently available only on PCs with NVIDIA and Intel GPU support, adds that the standard is platform-agnostic and can be fully supported on consoles and handhelds, and does not mention AMD. CEPro notes that HDR10+ has no licensing fees, which is the usual argument for it against Dolby Vision on cost.

The other difference is who tone maps. HDR10+ GAMING moves mapping to the source, and Dolby Vision on consoles is generally delivered in a player-tone-mapped form too (see player-led Dolby Vision), so the two are closer in design than their metadata formats suggest. The practical split is catalog and hardware: Dolby Vision gaming has the console library, and HDR10+ GAMING has a short PC list.

Which displays and games support it

The HDR10+ Technologies FAQ says certified HDR10+ GAMING TVs are available from several manufacturers, including Samsung, Hisense, Amazon, Prism+, and Haier, plus a growing list of PC monitors. It does not name models in the page I loaded; the certified-products list filtered by Gaming is the authority. Samsung's 2022 launch covered Neo QLED from the Q70 series upward and gaming monitors, and the 2023 coverage added that Odyssey monitors support it, along with some TVs from Amazon, Panasonic, TCL, and Vizio. Verify a 2026 set against the certified list, not against a brand name.

On the game side, the first title was Nexon's The First Descendant, announced in August 2023 with an open beta starting September 19. As of September 2026 the FAQ says 18 games support the standard, and its page names 15: Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Crimson Desert, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Battlefield 6, Hell Is Us, The First, Lost Rift, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Borderlands 4, F1 25, F1 25 Season Pack 2026, and Causal Loop. The page itself says new titles are added regularly, so the live list at hdr10plus.org is the source of truth. Eighteen games since the 2022 unveiling is a thin library next to the 100-plus Dolby Vision titles Xbox launched with, and that gap is the honest summary of the standard in 2026.

What you need on a PC

HDR10+ Technologies lists four requirements. The first is a certified GPU, NVIDIA or Intel, with up-to-date drivers. The second is HDR switched on in the display settings of Windows 10 or 11. The third is an HDMI connection to the display; the page does not mention DisplayPort. The fourth is a certified TV or monitor. With those in place the feature turns on automatically when a supported game launches, and no per-game calibration screen appears. NVIDIA announced its support for RTX and GeForce 16 series cards in November 2022, and Samsung's original list named RTX 30, RTX 20, and GTX 16 series GPUs.

Common confusions

It is not the same as playing a game on a TV that supports HDR10+ video. A TV can decode HDR10+ dynamic metadata from a streaming app without being certified for the gaming standard, and an HDR10+ logo on the box does not imply a gaming handshake. With consoles out of scope for now, console players still rely on the console's own HDR calibration and the TV's game mode (see HGIG). For picks that cover the console side, see best TV for gaming and PS5 Pro 120Hz TVs.