Last Updated on April 18, 2022
Elden Ring’s launch isn’t going well so far. The game received the best-ever ratings from critics, but the same is not the case for players. Elden Ring had a brief positive rating mixed with 20k reviews on Steam.
The bad reviews can be mainly attributed to the bad performance of the game, crashing issues, and bugs that are not letting people play the game. Some have even refunded the game already. Problems for AAA titles are nothing new. The game is one of the most demanding titles ever made, so problems will surely emerge.
Since the release of the game, we have added multiple ways of fixing this issue by gathering information from all the sources available on the web.
White Screen or Black Screen problem is being reported on the game forums and Steam. This issue is coming up due to the device drivers or wrong configuration. Let’s find out how we can fix this:
Fix White Screen or Black Screen in Elden Ring
Anything mentioned below should help you fix both the Black Screen and White Screen Issue in Elden Ring.
Replace Directx12 Files
This was reported by one of our readers and seems like it has solved the problem for many. The original location of the game has two DirectX files that you have to delete. The full steps are as follows:
- Go to Steam > Library > Right-click Elden Ring > Manage > Browse Local Files
- A new explorer window will open up, now delete the “D3D12.dll” and “D3D12Core.dll” files.
- Go to C Drive > Windows > System 32 and locate the files “D3D12.dll” and “D3D12Core.dll”
- Copy both the files and paste them in the game’s directory. Now rename “d3d12.dll” to d3d12_original.dll
- Now, download the fix files from GitHub from here
- Extract it using Winrar or Winzip
- Copy all the files and paste these files in the installation directory of Elden Ring. The file names are “d3d12.dll, d3d12.exp, d3d12.lib, d3d12.pdb“.
- Finally, try launching the game.
Note: Make sure your game is not running else you won’t be able to delete the files.
This error could be coming up for a lot of users due to incompatible or corrupt DirectX files. This fix seems to have worked for a few people. If this doesn’t work for you, make sure to read the other steps we have mentioned below.
Delete Temp Files
Temporary files are of no use and known for causing issues, you can delete them without any problems. To do so:
- Press Win+R and type “%Temp%”
- A new window will open up
- Here you will find multiple files and folders with random names
- These files have no use, just press Ctrl+A to select all files and delete them.
Turn off MSI Afterburner and RivaTuner
MSI Afterburner and Rivatuner are two of the most popular overclocking tools for Windows. They allow you to tweak your graphics card settings to get the best performance possible. Both programs are very easy to use, and they come with a lot of features that can help you improve your gaming experience.
But in this case, both Afterburner and Rivatuner are creating problems for users. I recommend you turn them off and check if your problem gets fixed or not. If not, then move on to the next step.
Update Your Device Drivers
Whenever you have an issue like this, you should first update your device drivers.
Do you wonder why you should update your graphic card drivers? It would be good to check on the new updates for two key reasons. Firstly, it’s the only way to ensure you have the latest drivers for your device. The more recent drivers will allow your computer to run every graphics-intensive application and keep up with any changes in technology without trailing too far behind.
AMD and Nvidia both have published drivers that offer optimizations for Elden Ring.
- Nvidia Game Ready version 511.79
- Adrenalin 22.2.3 Optional for AMD Users
Remove Epic Games Launcher
Elden Ring uses the same anti-cheat as Fortnite. Not sure why they require an anti-cheat for a game like this. People are opting for offline mode because of this problem.
Some users could fix their problem by uninstalling the Epic Games Launcher. You can search for “Add or Remove Programs” in the Windows search. After this, locate the Epic Games Launcher and click the uninstall button as shown below:
Change Preferred Graphics Processor using Nvidia
- Launch Nvidia Control Panel
- Click on 3D Settings > Manage 3D Settings
- Click on the “Program Settings”
- From here, select “Elden Ring” using the drop-down menu or locate the exe file of the same.
- Located “Preferred Graphics Processor” setting and select “High-performance NVIDIA processor”
Note: This option is only available for internal and external GPUs users.
These are a few ways to fix the white screen issue in Elden Ring. Comment below if this helped you or not.
If nothing works for you, the last resort would be either contacting FromSoftware support or just asking Steam for a refund.
The one thing I can’t figure out how to do is to locate “preferred graphics processor”. It doesn’t appear anywhere in my Nvidia panel. Probably just going to have to wait for a patch at this point.
It should appear for PCs that have both iGPU and dedicated GPU.
Uninstall the Epic Games launcher, EVEN IF you are using Steam. Tried every other solution, but that was the one that fixed it.
I have tried everything and nothing works, what should I do?
This is weird. Most of the users are reporting that removing Epic Games Launcher worked for them. I have mentioned other things too which have helped some on Reddit.
You forgot to mention renaming of the d3d12.dll copied into the game folder from the sys32 folder to “d3d12_original.dll” before copying in the files downloaded from GitHub – it won’t work unless you do, it will just be overwritten.
Thanks for pointing that out, fixed.
Try restarting once you remove epic launcher.
Have the same problem. Did you solve it? I still get the wite screen
Hi,
when I try the “Replace Directx12 Files” fix, EAC doesn’t let me launch the game anymore, throwing the error message: “Untrusted system File ….\D3D12.dll”
Any suggestions?
What you can do is, just delete the two DX files and repair using Steam Client.
My game worked great. 40+ hours in untill the new patch and now I white screen on launch. I’ve tried everything on this page and nothing worked. I guess I’ll have to wait for the next patch.
Nothing is working for me either. It worked fine until a couple days ago, now goes to white screen then that disappears. And lol having to delete a game launcher and all its games to make this work. I’ll just wait for a fix.
It has something to do with anti-cheat and Epic Games conflict. There’s nothing we can do until the developers fix this through a hotfix or patch.
Make a copy of eldenring.exe and rename it to startprotectedgame.exe (save a copy of the original). Use the renamed exe to launch the game instead of eldenring.exe. This may do it.
Hi, thanks so much for your fixes. I have tried them all but I still can’t launch the game.
I did your replace Directx12 files and now I can’t launch the game at all, can you please help identify what I did wrong? I followed the steps in order exactly, even deleted all the files and completed the process again. Then I deleted them and tried renaming the downloaded file instead because it was lower case as well I thought maybe the steps were out of order, this didn’t work either.
This is the error I get – Untrusted system file (D:/etcetc\D3D12_original.dll)
Thankyou
Hey, are you only getting “D3D12_original.dll” as an Untrusted file in this error?
Hello, I’m getting this same error, too. It is saying “D3D12_original.dll” is the untrusted file.
Deleting Temp files worked for me. I’m actually angry this worked. In 25 years of IT that has NEVER been the issue.
Well, this time it was. For the first time in 25 years. From Soft should be ashamed for not having error checking in their cache loaders. Cache invalidation is crucial, and if you can’t get it right, you shouldn’t have cache. For temp files it’s generally a simple try { load } catch { delete cache; start over }
Thanks for this article, all the tips are appreciated.