HGiG stands for the HDR Gaming Interest Group. It is not an HDR format like HDR10+ or Dolby Vision. It is a consortium of companies that came together to create guidelines and best practices for how HDR should be implemented in games, consoles, and TVs. The group was announced in 2018; its organizers were Microsoft and Sony, and it drew volunteer participation from companies across the gaming and TV display industries.

Why HGiG exists: the double tone mapping problem

From a display engineering standpoint, the core problem HGiG addresses is tone mapping being applied twice.

HDR games are rendered internally with a very wide luminance range, then the game engine compresses that range to fit the target display. Most TVs also run their own tone mapper in the video pipeline, and until HGiG the TV had no reliable way to know that the incoming signal was already mapped. The result was that some TVs applied their own tone mapping on top of the game's tone mapping, producing distorted or washed-out images. In practice this showed up as clipped highlights, raised black floors, and inconsistent brightness from one TV brand to the next.

How the HGiG guidelines work

The official HGiG guideline document defines a simple handshake between three parties:

1. The TV declares its actual capabilities and, in a gaming picture mode, disables dynamic tone mapping so it reproduces the PQ (ST 2084) signal faithfully up to its hardware limit, then hard clips.
2. The console runs a system-level calibration that captures three values: MaxFFTML, MaxTML, and MinTML. MaxFFTML (Max Full Frame Tone Map Luminance) is the brightest level at which the display shows white detail across the full screen; MaxTML (Max Tone Map Luminance) is the brightest level at which it still shows white detail; MinTML is the darkest level at which it still shows black detail. This is the "Adjust HDR" screen on PlayStation 5 and the HDR Game Calibration app on Xbox Series X|S.
3. The game reads those values through the console API and tone maps once, correctly, to the real panel.

An important detail that gets lost in marketing: HGiG's organizers have stated on the official HGiG site that "HGiG mode" is not a product function defined in the HGiG guidelines. The menu toggle you see on TVs is a manufacturer implementation of the behavior described above. HGiG itself is not a standardization group; it may liaise with standards development organizations so that they develop the relevant standards.

Where you'll find it in practice

• LG: On webOS 6.0 (2021) and later, HGiG is selectable under Game Optimizer, Screen, Tone Mapping Compensation. Documentation is on the LG support page.
• Sony: There is no HGiG-labeled toggle on many models. The equivalent step is turning off HDR Tone Mapping in the Brightness sub-menu of Picture settings, then running the console calibration.
• Samsung, Panasonic, and others: Support varies by model year and firmware. Some sets always tone map in game mode, which is why calibration results on those panels look different, a point well documented in Xbox Series X calibration discussions on AVS Forum.
• PC: Microsoft's Windows HDR Calibration app applies the same three-pattern approach to Windows 11 for Auto HDR and native HDR titles.

Engineering perspective: strengths and limits

HGiG is the correct architecture. Tone mapping belongs at the source, where the renderer knows the scene's actual luminance histogram, not in a TV video processor guessing from static MaxCLL/MaxFALL metadata. A single, accurate map yields the highlight detail and black floor the panel was measured to deliver.

The limits are practical rather than theoretical:

• Game adoption is uneven. The pipeline only works end to end if the title actually reads the system calibration values. Many games still ship their own in-game HDR sliders and ignore the console data, which brings the guesswork back.
• HGiG mode looks dimmer. On an OLED capable of roughly 800 to 1,000 nits peak, disabling dynamic tone mapping means highlights above that level clip rather than being compressed downward. Dynamic tone mapping produces a punchier image that many viewers prefer, even though it is less accurate to the developer's intent.
• Calibration accuracy depends on the user. The console patterns rely on the viewer judging when a sun or checkerboard symbol vanishes. Room lighting and eyesight affect the outcome. Xbox exposes the numeric values (press LB+RB+LT+RT in the calibration app), which is the more reliable way to match the panel's measured peak.

Bottom line

HGiG is a set of industry guidelines, backed by Sony and Microsoft, that lets the game do tone mapping once against real, measured display limits and asks the TV to stay out of the way. On a well-calibrated OLED or full-array LCD, with a game that honors the console's HDR calibration, it delivers the most faithful HDR image available on consoles today. When either the TV or the game does not cooperate, a manufacturer's dynamic tone mapping can be the more forgiving choice.

The primary reference remains the group's own site at hgig.org, including its FAQ and the original Sony Interactive Entertainment announcement.