If you want to play games at an image size that permits a truly immersive experience, which you can get only from a projector, the Optoma GT1080 ($749) is a prime candidate. As with earlier GT models, Optoma designed the projector with games in mind, focusing on features like a short lag time, so you can have a fast response in games that depend on reaction time. The GT1080 ($650.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is the first GT model with 1080p native resolution, so it can take full advantage of the newest crop of game consoles. All this makes it our Editors’ Choice gaming projector.

Optoma’s earlier GT models, including the Optoma GT760 ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , which is still available, all offer 720p native resolution. That made good sense when game consoles were limited to 720p, because scaling the image up to fill out the full matrix in a native 1080p display would mean adding pixels, which can degrade image quality by adding artifacts. But today’s gaming consoles have moved to 1080p.

It works the other way, too. If you have a game console putting out a 1080p image that has to be scaled down to fit in a projector’s native 720p resolution, you can also degrade image quality. So with a 1080p game console, you want a 1080p projector. That’s where the GT1080 comes in.

The Basics
The GT1080 offers a constellation of features that help make it a good choice for gaming. It’s rated at 2,800 lumens to give you a big image that can stand up to ambient light, and its short-throw lens gives you that image from close to the screen—just 38 inches away in my tests for a 90-inch (diagonal) image. It can, in short, give you a big image even with the lights on while letting you sit close enough to the screen to fill most of your visual field without having to worry about casting shadows.

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The projector has support for all HDMI 1.4a 3D formats. That means that in addition to letting you connect to a game console for 3D games, the 3D support works just as well for connecting to a Blu-ray player or cable box for movies or other 3D material. The GT1080 doesn’t come with any 3D glasses, however. I tested it with 144Hz DLP-Link glasses, and Optoma says it will also work with Vesa RF glasses, although it won’t work with both kinds at the same time.

Sound is another important part of an immersive game experience, and another plus for the GT1080. The 10-watt mono speaker delivers good sound quality, along with enough volume to fill a typical family room or living room. If you want still better quality, you can plug an external sound system into the stereo miniplug output.

Setup and Brightness
The GT1080 is small and light enough, at 4 by 12.4 by 8.8 inches (HWD) and 6 pounds, that if you don’t have a place to set it up permanently, you can easily store it away when you’re not using it. Setup is typical for a short-throw projector, with a manual focus and no optical zoom. Position the projector at the right distance from the screen to give you the image size you want, connect a cable between the projector and an image source (for instance, a gaming console or gaming PC) and focus. Image inputs are limited to two HDMI ports, for connection to any PC or video source with an HDMI, DVI-I, or DVI-D port. One of the HDMI ports also supports Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) for easy connection to compatible phones and tablets.

I found the GT1080 easily bright enough fora 90-inch (diagonal) image in moderate ambient light. For smaller screen sizes or dimmer lighting, you can lower the brightness by switching to Eco mode or a lower-brightness predefined mode.

Image Quality and Lag
Game images share some aspects of data images and some of video, so to handle games well, a projector has to do a good job with both video and data screens. The GT1080 does, or at least does well enough.

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On our standard suite of DisplayMate(Opens in a new window) tests, the GT1080 delivered good color balance in all predefined modes, with suitably neutral grays at all shades from black to white. Colors are also suitably eye-catching and saturated in most modes, and the projector does a good job with detail, with white text on black, for example, crisp and readable at sizes as small as 9 points, and black text on white easily readable at 6.8 points.

Video quality is comparable to what you’ll see with low-cost home entertainment projectors like the BenQ HT1075 ($1,299.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) or Optoma HD26 ($949.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . However, I saw one odd problem, which I also saw with the Optoma model. With some live and recorded digital video, the GT1080 showed an unacceptable level of posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually). I don’t consider this serious, however, because the problem cropped up only in the brightest modes, didn’t show with filmed material, and didn’t even show with all live or recorded digital video.

I didn’t see many of the rainbow artifacts (flashes of red, green, and blue) that are always a potential concern for DLP projectors. Even people who see these artifacts easily, as I do, are unlikely to see them often enough with the GT1080 to find them annoying.

Image quality for 3D is essentially the same as for 2D for all of those aspects of image quality that both modes share. The projector also did well on issues specific to 3D content. I didn’t see any crosstalk and saw only a hint of 3D-related motion artifacts.

One last important feature for game playing is lag time. I measured the lag, using a Leo Bodnar Video Input Lag Tester , at just 33 milliseconds (ms), which works out to a 2-frame lag at 60 frames per second. Most people would consider this near-excellent. It’s also as short a lag time as we’ve seen for any projector we’ve tested to date, including data projectors. As a point of reference, the BenQ HT1075 came in at 49.7ms—a 3-frame lag.

If you’re planning to set up your projector in a room where you don’t need a short-throw lens to avoid shadows, you can save some money by getting the Optoma HD26, which offers a similar design and capabilities—including a short lag time—but with a standard lens. If you can make good use of a short-throw lens, however, and you have a 1080p game console or are planning to get one, the Optoma GT1080 will be hard to beat. Its combination of features—all targeted specifically at gaming—makes it our top pick for a gaming projector.