Philips steps up TV gaming with full HDMI 2.1, Reference mode, AmbiScape

At IFA in Berlin, Philips previewed its latest suite of gaming features, built around a redesigned Gamebar with a 'Reference' picture mode, four HDMI 2.1, up to 165Hz and per-game settings.

All major TV makers now support HDMI 2.1 with automatic switching to Game mode (ALLM) and variable refresh rate (VRR), but Philips is looking to take gaming a step or two further, the company said at IFA 2026 during a closed-door presentation attended by Flatpanels.

Specifically, Philips is leveraging its P5 picture engine, a new Gamebar 2.0 and Ambilight immersion with AmbiScape, as depicted below:


Four HDMI 2.1 ports, finally
Let us start from the bottom and test Philips' claims from the presentation while comparing them with the competition.

First of all, after years of being limited to two HDMI 2.1 ports, Philips finally has four HDMI 2.1 ports, all with 48Gbps bandwidth and all supporting both ALLM and VRR, including AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync Compatible. TV brands like LG and Samsung have offered this for years, but Philips is now catching up after upgrading to MediaTek’s Pentonic 800 SoC.

Philips' 2026 OLED TVs now also support up to 165Hz at 4K, up from 144Hz last year. Samsung and Hisense were the first to move to 165Hz last year, with LG adding 165Hz support this year. However, it is worth noting that this matters only for PC gaming. Game consoles max out at 120Hz, so anything above that is irrelevant if you are playing on a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X.

Philips has also managed to bring input lag down to 7ms at 120Hz, which is very competitive. After (input)-lagging behind some of its competitors in the past, Philips said that it has put a lot of effort into reducing input lag. We confirmed Philips' significantly reduced input lag in our OLED811 review.

While OLED delivers significantly faster response times and better picture quality during gaming compared to miniLED LCD TVs, one area where OLED TVs currently do not match LCDs is DLG (Dual-Line Gate), which allows you to drop to 1080p to play at 240Hz or even 330Hz. Again, this is only relevant for PC gaming, and even then, we would personally still prefer to play on OLED, all things considered.


Gamebar 2.0
One of the coolest additions to Philips' 2026 OLED models is the new Gamebar 2.0, especially its new 'Reference' picture mode. The Gamebar can also detect the game being played and let you adjust settings individually for each game, as presented by Dieter Verlinde, Team Lead for PQ Innovation at TP Vision, the company behind Philips in Europe.

'Reference' picture mode delivers accurate color and luminance in SDR, HDR and Dolby Vision while keeping input lag as low as possible, so games are not blown out to extreme colors and brightness like Game modes on some competing TVs. You can still switch to other picture modes if you prefer, but remember that game developers have put a lot of time and effort into creating the specific look of their games. 'Reference' mode is designed to let you experience them as they were meant to be experienced.


Philips' AI system can now detect specific games, as seen below. At launch, only a handful of games are recognized based on a database, but more will be added over time, said Dieter. One of the first is Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced.

When it recognizes a game, it will default to 'Reference' mode, but you can adjust picture and audio settings specifically for that game, if you want.


Philips has also developed an AI-based motion interpolation mode specifically for games, similar to what Samsung has offered for years and comparable in principle to Nvidia's DLSS frame-generation. Specifically, the "Low frame rate" mode on 2026 Philips TVs lets you use motion interpolation with 30fps games to reach 60fps. In other words, every second frame is generated artificially by the TV. Philips said that it adds about 10ms of extra input lag, which is not nothing, but likely low enough for most console gamers not to be bothered once they experience the smoother 60fps presentation. As always, motion interpolation can create picture artefacts, which we did see to some extent during the short demo, but we will need more time with the system to draw conclusions.


Three steps forward
First, enabled by the Pentonic 800 SoC, Philips finally offers four HDMI 2.1 ports, all with lower input lag, VRR and ALLM, supporting up to 165Hz at 4K.

Second, we warmly welcome the 'Reference' picture mode for games. It not only lets you play games closer to the way they were intended, but also puts a welcome emphasis on accuracy. We are not sure how useful per-game settings will be in most games, but we can see the fixed crosshair, for example, being useful in some first-person shooters.

Third, while Ambilight's dynamic mood lighting is the subject of debate for movies and series (you can also set it to warm-white bias lighting), I think it works quite well to elevante gaming immersion, especially after Philips managed to bring down latency some years ago. The addition of AmbiScape extends that experience beyond the TV and into your living room. If next year's Matter-over-Thread expansion to AmbiScape can bring down latency further and expand the ecosystem to more lamps and brands, I think this could prove popular with console gamers.

While some competitors like LG and Samsung match Philips with OLED, HDMI 2.1 and similar Gamebar features, they do not always offer or promote accurate picture modes for gaming. With the addition of AmbiScape for gaming, we think Philips has managed to position itself among the frontrunners in TV gaming.

2026 Philips TVs with the new gaming features
 Flatpanels