Marathon Best Settings in 2026

Marathon Best Settings TL;DR

• Use NVIDIA DLSS or a similar upscaler if you want higher FPS

• Keep resolution native, then control performance with render resolution instead.

• Lower environment detail distance and character detail distance first for quick performance gains.

• Turn off motion blur, film grain, chromatic aberration, and light shafts for clarity.

• Keep texture anisotropy at 16x; it is usually cheap and helps with visual clarity, especially at the longer distances.

• Use NVIDIA Reflex On to reduce input delay.

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Best Graphics Settings for Marathon (Balanced)

In my time testing, this settings preset is a sweetspot between clean visuals and a consistent frame rate. What we’re trying to achieve here is to avoid the few settings that spike frame times during explosions, and enemies deploying smoke and shields, and heavy ability effects. Before going into details and changing more advanced settings, your core display settings foundation should look something like this:

• Fullscreen or borderless, depending on your setup

• Select your screen’s native resolution

• Turn DLSS or your preferred scaling method on; these days, it’s a must

• Set a reasonable frame cap - both background and foreground

That’s a setup suitable for a mid-range PC, so adjust it according to your specs. Though I still prefer to run somewhat mid settings for the highest FPS possible.

Once you have stable frames at all times, even during the most intense fights, then you can bump texture quality or depth effects if you care about looks.

Best Marathon Settings for Low-End PCs

We’ve all been here - if you’re on the go playing on a laptop, or just playing on older hardware in general, in this predicament, you mainly want to achieve these things:

• avoid all stutters

• keep the image readable enough to play well

• have a consistent framerate

On low-end systems, pushing textures too high can cause VRAM overload, and heavy shadow settings can spike your frame time in combat. Using upscaling is an absolute must, and all necessary stuff needs to be turned off.

After this, if your game plays well, you can add some quality settings back slowly. Texture anisotropy is usually a good first upgrade, then texture quality, if you’re not stuttering. Avoid raising shadows early, because they often punish low-end systems the most.

Marathon Controls and Input Settings

Mouse and controller settings are where everyone seems to have strong personal preferences. Luckily, the weird, sluggish aim assist present at Marathon’s alpha test is now completely gone, yet some potentially problematic settings still exist. Here are several important settings to change in order not have any hindrances while playing:

On mouse and keyboard:

• Turn off mouse acceleration

• Keep a consistent sensitivity, you can build muscle memory with / already have one

• Use a slightly lower ADS multiplier if you tend to overcorrect your shots

• Bind critical actions to keys you can easily reach. I prefer rebinding the interact button to G and keeping the default one for movement skills

On controller:

• Keep dead zones as low as you feel comfortable with

• Match horizontal and vertical sensitivity unless you have a reason not to

• Avoid heavy aim smoothing if it makes tracking feel delayed and jumpy

NVIDIA Reflex On is one of the few settings that can instantly improve how the game controls fee, at least in my experience. If you notice a weird frame rate while running it on your setup, test On versus On plus Boost, and pick the smoother option.

Audio Settings for Better Awareness

In an extraction-style game, audio is your lifeline. Every game in the genre is rat-ridden, and Marathon isn’t an exception. While tuning your settings, your goal is to hear any enemy cues before they shoot you in the back.

• Lower music to hear everything gameplay-related

• Keep effects high enough to hear movement and interaction sounds

• Keep dialogue at a comfortable level, but not dominant

• Set voice proximity chat so it is clear without being too loud - that is, if you’re interested in negotiations

If the game offers dynamic range options, a compressed or night mode style mix often helps because quiet sounds become easier to pick up. If you stream or in a loud environment, this is even more useful.