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ciao_gio

Member

Registered: 2024-09-17

Posts: 10

[SOLVED] Elden Ring white screen crash

I am trying to launch Elden Ring from Steam, but after the Easy Anti-Cheat loading screen, a white screen appears for a few seconds, my cursor changes texture, and then it crashes. I am on Arch with Hyprland and the Zen kernel. I have an integrated GPU (Intel Iris Xe Graphics) and a dedicated GPU (Nvidia RTX A500). I am using the nvidia-open-dkms drivers, and I use the integrated GPU for everyday activities and the dedicated GPU only for games with prime-run. I can run other (lighter) games, so I assume everything is working correctly. I have tried almost every Proton version and also tried using only the integrated GPU, but nothing changes. Here you have the result of enabling PROTON_LOG. Thanks for any help! :)

Last edited by ciao_gio (2026-08-20 22:20:15)

elbo7

Member

Registered: 2026-08-18

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Elden Ring white screen crash

I ran into what looks like the same issue on an RTX A2000, and I may have found a very specific trigger.

After trying basically everything imaginable, I eventually narrowed the crash down to the '__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME' environment variable. On my system, Elden Ring consistently crashes with a white screen when Steam inherits:

__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia

but launches normally when that variable is unset.

The interesting part is that the other NVIDIA/PRIME variables don't appear to matter. I tested these two environments directly:

env __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia steam

Elden Ring crashes.

env __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME= steam

Elden Ring launches normally.

I also tested with a completely fresh Proton prefix, no launch options, different Proton versions, EAC disabled, Steam Overlay disabled, X11 vs Wayland, etc. Same behavior until I found this.

I'm on an RTX A2000, and while searching for the relevant Proton log error I noticed several other reports involving non-GeForce NVIDIA GPUs, including an A3000, T600, T1200 and RTX 500 Ada. Given how uncommon these workstation GPUs are compared with GeForce cards, I'm wondering if there's a common driver/runtime issue here that isn't getting much exposure.

The particularly weird part is that '__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME' is a GLX/OpenGL variable, while Elden Ring is D3D12 -> VKD3D -> Vulkan, so I have no idea why setting it would affect the game.

If anyone with one of these workstation NVIDIA GPUs can reproduce it, I'd be very interested to know. The minimal reproducer on my machine is simply:

env __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia steam

vs.

env -u __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME steam

The former crashes Elden Ring, the latter works.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,366

Re: [SOLVED] Elden Ring white screen crash

If you run the entirety of steam with that set you will at the minimum let steam renderer stuff go to the nvidia card and there's some potential weird interaction there with e.g. the steam overlay or so. Can you reproduce if you limit this to just the game via launch options? But with  DXVK/VKD3D this isn't strictly necessary as they contain code to prefer the dedicated GPU even without that environment bender).

But for the OP this might still be a valid hint if they do actively use prime-run, which will set that variable, simply omitting it should help in that case.

Last edited by V1del (2026-08-18 15:30:31)

ciao_gio

Member

Registered: 2024-09-17

Posts: 10

Re: [SOLVED] Elden Ring white screen crash

Running Steam with that variable unset actually fixes the issue. If "__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME" is set to "nvidia", I can see Steam using the Nvidia GPU also for games. If the variable is unset I can run Steam and other games on the integrated GPU, while Elden Ring uses the dedicated one.
Trying to unset the variable only for Elden Ring from the launch options still causes the game to crash.
Should I mark this thread as solved or should I leave the discussion open?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,366

Re: [SOLVED] Elden Ring white screen crash

Do you have this variable set globally? you really shouldn't (not only because of this issue, but because you'd normally select on demand and you don't want your normal desktop to be handled by the nvidia GPU for power saving purposes). can you reproduce whether adding this variable to just the elden ring launch options (in the corresponding game preferences menu add

__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia %command%

also leads to this issue? you ideally only add this variable (or rather the entire prime-run command) just to games where you explicitly need it and in the general sense anyfhing you're running via Proton doesn't need it since the translation layers have custom code to prefer the dedicated card regardless of this variable being present. Generally speaking, this variable has almost never a reason to be set globally, but it's one of those cargo cult things many tutorials just blindly parrot while it's absolutely not necessary to set this globally  and can apparently have negative consequences.

Whether you want to mark as [SOLVED] or not is ultimately up to you

Last edited by V1del (2026-08-20 11:37:25)

ciao_gio

Member

Registered: 2024-09-17

Posts: 10

Re: [SOLVED] Elden Ring white screen crash

I had this variable set globally. I just tried removing it and Elden Ring doesn't crash, even setting the variable in the launch options. Thanks for your help and for the explanation!