Buying guide
Best Projectors for Gaming
Reviewed by
Eran Yorkovsky · Founder, PickGrade
Gaming on a 120-inch screen is glorious, until input lag turns every shot into a delay. A gaming projector needs low latency and, ideally, a high refresh rate, on top of the brightness and color you would want anyway. These are the projectors that deliver, and the one thing to check before you buy.
Take the quiz →Two numbers separate a great gaming projector from a frustrating one: input lag, the delay between your controller and the screen, and refresh rate, how many frames per second it can show. Most projectors cap at 4K/60Hz with middling lag. The best add a 240Hz mode and lag low enough for fast play.
And one warning before the picks, because it disqualifies the projector you were probably about to buy.
Check this first
Our highest-scoring projector overall, the Anker Nebula X1, is 60Hz only. It has the best picture in its class, the deepest blacks we have measured on a DLP projector, and it is currently the cheapest of the flagship triple-lasers. It is also the wrong projector for a gamer, and there is no setting that fixes that.
This catches people out constantly. Picture quality and gaming performance are close to independent in this category, and the best-looking projector is frequently not the one you want on the end of a console. Decide which you are optimizing for before you shop.
The short answer
- Best for gaming overall: XGIMI Horizon 20 Max, around $2,599
- Best gaming laser TV: Hisense PX3-Pro, around $3,499
- Best value + best sound: Hisense C2 Ultra, around $2,499
- Best on a budget: BenQ GP520, around $1,499, casual play only
The picks in depth
XGIMI Horizon 20 Max is the gaming projector to buy. It runs 1ms input lag at 1080p/240Hz and 3ms at 4K/60Hz, with VRR and ALLM, which is as good as this category currently gets. It is also genuinely bright (roughly 3,000 to 3,500 calibrated lumens) and it has true lens shift, which means you can put it somewhere awkward and still get a square, uncropped image. Its weakness is black level, around 1,510:1 native, so dark games look a little washed out in a dark room.
Hisense PX3-Pro is the first ultra-short-throw certified 'Designed for Xbox', with a 240Hz low-latency mode. That matters because it makes a laser TV a legitimate console screen: it sits on the console inches from the wall, turns on like a TV, and games properly. Nothing else in the UST category does. Budget for the ALR screen it needs.
Hisense C2 Ultra brings a 240Hz mode and roughly 12 to 15ms of lag, and it has the best built-in sound of any projector here: a JBL 2.1 system with a real 20-watt subwoofer. If the projector is going to be your entire gaming setup, speakers included, this is the one. It is also 'Designed for Xbox'.
BenQ GP520 caps at 4K/60 with about 18ms of lag. That is fine for a platformer, a racing game, or anything single-player on a Sunday. It is not fine for a competitive shooter, and BenQ does not pretend otherwise.
The specs that actually decide it
- 240Hz is almost always 1080p. Every projector here runs its high-refresh mode at 1080p; 4K typically caps at 60Hz. For fast shooters that is the right trade, and on a 120-inch screen from ten feet away, you will not miss the pixels as much as you would miss the frames.
- Turn on Game mode. It bypasses image processing like motion smoothing and heavy keystone correction, and the lag reduction is often dramatic. A projector with a 12ms rating can measure five times that with processing left on.
- Refresh rate is a hard filter, not a preference. A 60Hz projector cannot be made into a 240Hz projector. Check it first, then compare pictures among the survivors.
- Brightness still matters. A dim projector looks worse mid-game too, and dark game environments are exactly where a weak projector falls apart. All our gaming picks are genuinely bright.
What I would skip
The Anker Nebula X1, if you game. Said once already, worth saying twice, because it is the projector most likely to be recommended to you on picture quality alone.
Any projector that lists 'low input lag' without a number. If the figure were good, it would be printed. Look for a millisecond value and a refresh rate, in a stated mode.
A projector, if you are a competitive player. This is the honest version of the advice. Even the best gaming projector's latency trails a decent gaming monitor, and the response you feel at 1ms on a 240Hz monitor is not something a projector will match. Projectors win on scale and on sitting on a sofa, not on milliseconds. If your ranking matters to you, buy the monitor and use the projector for everything else.
Spending up for 4K/120. Very few projectors offer it, they charge a lot for it, and consoles rarely sustain it. 1080p/240 or 4K/60 covers essentially all real gaming.
Still choosing?
Frequently asked
What is a good input lag for a projector?
Under 20ms is fine for casual and single-player gaming. Under 15ms is comfortable for most console play. Under 5ms, which the best projectors reach in a 1080p/240Hz mode, is genuinely responsive. For reference, a good gaming monitor is around 1ms, so even the best projector is making a trade-off, and competitive players will still feel it.
Do projectors support 120Hz or 240Hz?
The best ones do, but almost always at 1080p rather than 4K. The XGIMI Horizon 20 Max and Hisense C2 Ultra both offer 240Hz at 1080p while capping 4K at 60Hz. True 4K/120 remains rare and expensive on projectors, and consoles rarely sustain it anyway, so 1080p/240 or 4K/60 covers nearly all real gaming.
Can you play Xbox or PlayStation on a projector?
Yes, and two projectors here are certified 'Designed for Xbox': the Hisense PX3-Pro and the Hisense C2 Ultra, both offering a 240Hz low-latency mode. Any projector with an HDMI port will run a console, but the certification and the high-refresh mode are what make the experience feel responsive rather than sluggish.
Is a projector good for competitive gaming?
Honestly, no. Even the fastest projector's input lag trails a good gaming monitor, and no amount of screen size compensates for that if your ranking matters to you. Projectors win on scale, immersion, and playing from a sofa. If you play competitively, use a monitor for that and a projector for everything else.
Does a brighter projector help with gaming?
Yes, in two ways. An underlit projector washes out in a room with any ambient light, which ruins games as thoroughly as films. And game environments are often dark, which is exactly where a weak projector's poor contrast and low brightness combine into a muddy, hard-to-read image. All our gaming picks measure 2,600 or more real ANSI lumens.
Why is game mode important on a projector?
Game mode bypasses the image processing (motion smoothing, noise reduction, heavy keystone correction) that sits between the input signal and the panel. That processing is what creates most of the lag. A projector rated at 12ms can measure several times that with processing left on, so leaving game mode off effectively cancels out the reason you bought a low-lag projector.