Owning a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X and a TV that supports 4K at 120Hz isn’t enough on its own: if the connection or settings aren’t right, you’ll still end up gaming at 60Hz without even noticing, losing most of the reason you chose a high-end gaming TV in the first place. Here’s how to check every step, plus what to look at if something isn’t working as expected.
1. Use the right HDMI port on your TV
Not every HDMI port on a TV, even on models advertising HDMI 2.1 support, is actually 2.1: often only one or two are, while the rest stay at 2.0, fine for a set-top box or Blu-ray player but not for high-refresh 4K. Check your TV’s spec sheet (or the labels near the ports, when present — many manufacturers explicitly mark the HDMI 2.1 port with a different color or an “eARC/2.1” label). On a model like the Hisense 65E7S PRO, for instance, only 2 of the 4 HDMI ports support 4K at 144Hz: connecting the console to one of the other two, though physically identical, would cap the signal at 4K@60Hz with no obvious error message.
2. Use an Ultra High Speed certified HDMI cable
An old HDMI cable, even if it physically connects fine and seems to work, might not have enough bandwidth to carry a 4K signal at 120Hz, causing intermittent disconnections, an automatic fallback to a lower resolution or refresh rate, or no signal at all. Look for a cable with Ultra High Speed HDMI certification (associated with the HDMI 2.1 standard, capable of handling up to 48 Gbps): it’s the only way to be sure the cable itself isn’t the bottleneck. Older HDMI cables, even if generically labeled “4K”, are often only certified for lower bandwidths.
3. Enable the right mode on the TV
Many TVs, by default, don’t enable all of an HDMI port’s capabilities (like 120Hz or deep-color HDR) for compatibility with older devices that might not handle them correctly. In the TV’s menus, look for an option like “Enhanced HDMI signal format”, “HDMI Ultra HD Deep Colour”, “Enhanced game mode” or “Enhanced Format” (the name varies by brand: Samsung typically calls it “HDMI UHD Color”, LG “HDMI Deep Colour”, Hisense and TCL use similar names in the HDMI menu) and enable it on the port connected to your console. Without explicitly enabling this, the HDMI 2.1 port will keep behaving like a standard 2.0 one.
4. Configure the console
On PS5: go to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output and make sure resolution is set to 4K and the “120Hz” option is enabled (it only appears if the TV supports it and was correctly detected in the previous step — if it doesn’t appear at all, the issue is almost always step 3, the enhanced HDMI mode not enabled on the TV).
On Xbox Series X/S: go to Settings > General > TV & display options > Video resolution and check that both 4K and 120Hz are enabled, and that VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) shows as enabled under TV & display options > Video. Xbox also offers a built-in test feature that automatically checks the connected HDMI port’s capabilities, useful for immediately spotting whether the bottleneck is the console, the cable, or the TV.
5. Verify everything is working
Both consoles show a summary of the active connection (resolution, refresh rate, HDR, VRR) in their system menus: it’s the quickest way to confirm the actual output signal, instead of finding out halfway through a match by simply guessing whether the image “feels” smooth. On PS5 this summary is in the same video settings screen; on Xbox Series X/S in the dedicated TV and display options section.
What to do if 120Hz won’t enable
If after all the steps above the TV still won’t show the 120Hz option, try in this order: first, unplug and replug the HDMI cable (sometimes the initial signal negotiation silently fails and a simple re-plug gets it right); second, try a different HDMI cable, even if the current one looks certified, since not every cable with the same label genuinely meets the stated standard; third, check that firmware is up to date on both the console and the TV, since manufacturers periodically release updates that fix exactly this kind of HDMI 2.1 negotiation issue; fourth, if the TV has multiple HDMI 2.1 ports, try them one by one, since in rare cases a single port can have an isolated hardware fault.
Why it’s worth the effort
With the right setup, games that support 120 frames per second feel noticeably more responsive and fluid, especially in competitive online titles where every millisecond less of latency can be the difference between winning or losing an exchange. Even without hitting a full 120fps at all times, VRR reduces screen tearing when the frame rate dips below the maximum, still improving the experience compared to a non-optimized connection — a topic we also cover in our full guide on how to choose a TV, in the section on refresh rate and gaming.