Bungie Answered
40+ Windows Defender Warnings on Launch & Persistent HDR Visual Glitches
Bungie Name: Artorius#7053
Platform: Steam
Specs: NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti, AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, 64GB RAM.
Display: OLED (HDR Enabled).
Description of Issues:
Windows Defender Spam: Every time I launch Marathon, I receive approximately 40 security warning pop-ups from Windows Defender. The game starts, but the spam is excessive.
Visual Glitches: Persistent graphical artifacts and "watery" textures occur during gameplay. This seems tied to HDR settings.
Attempted Fixes:
Updated all drivers to the latest versions.
Toggled Windows Defender and Core Isolation (Memory Integrity) On/Off; the visual glitches remain regardless of these settings.
The issues only seem to subside when HDR is completely disabled, which is not ideal for an OLED display.
0
Comments
Hello there,
Thank you for reaching out and reporting this issue.
Windows Defender warnings on launch
We’re not currently tracking widespread Defender pop‑up spam specific to Marathon, but it can happen if Windows is re‑scanning multiple components at startup. A few things to try/check:
Make sure no other antivirus / security suites are running alongside Windows Defender (they can double‑scan the same binaries).
In Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Protection history, grab the exact name and details of the items Defender is warning about.
Confirm Marathon’s install folder and launcher aren’t being quarantined or blocked (if they are, restoring them and adding them to Allowed threats / Exclusions can stop the flood of alerts).
If you’re able, a screenshot of a single Defender popup plus the Protection history entry for it would be very useful for the report.
2. HDR “watery” artifacts / visual glitches on OLED
We do have some open work around HDR behavior and calibration (including how different HDR modes are handled), and a few reports of visual issues that only appear with HDR enabled on certain displays/GPUs. For now, the most reliable workaround is what you’ve already found: running without HDR, but you can also try:
In Windows display settings:
Toggle Use HDR off/on for that display, then relaunch Marathon.
In Marathon Video settings (with HDR on):
Lower HDR Peak Brightness (nits) a bit from whatever you’ve set.
Nudge HDR Midpoint up slightly and see if that reduces the “shimmering” / watery effect.
Try switching between different AA options (and toggling DLSS / FSR if you’re using them), then restart the game once after changing.
Please sign in to leave a comment.