The relevance of this information in 2021 after the 2021-07-15 patch is unknown. The information is retained below, though I might eventually remove it if I determine that it is not as relevant any longer as before.

The issue the community have chosen to label as the "white screen crash" (sometimes referred to as "WSOD" or "white screen of death") is one or more reoccurring bug(s) that occasionally causes the display drivers to crash. This results in either a completely white screen or a frozen image that doesn't go away no matter what the user does.

This issue doesn't occur frequently enough to be a concern on most builds. It's mostly a small subset (GTX 700 series, some AMD cards) that experience it frequently enough to be a hindrance to the enjoyment of the game.

The current situation of the issue can be summarized as follows: There are no perfect solution so far, but tweaks exists to help mitigate the issue on most configurations that are more affected by the issue.

What follows is an aggregated list of things that users have reported worked for them:

CPU:
• Limiting core affinity (which cores the game will make use of) seems to be one of the most successful fixes so far that the community have found.
  
  
• Automatic method:
  
  1. Create a shortcut with the following target:
     
     C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start /affinity 5 /D "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\NierAutomata" NieRAutomata.exe
     
     
  2. Change the "/affinity 5" value depending on how many cores the game should use:
     
     Value

     CPUs to use

     Comment

     5

     CPU 0, 2

     Reported to work well on most builds

     15

     CPU 0, 2, 4

     Only for CPUs with 6 or more logical processors

     55

     CPU 0, 2, 4, 6

     Only for CPUs with 8 or more logical processors
     
     
  3. Change the "Start in" field in the properties of the shortcut to point to the game folder:
     C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\NierAutomata
     
     
  4. Use the shortcut to launch the game. This shortcut will automatically limit the CPU affinity for you on launch.
  
  
• Manual method: (on each launch)
  
  1. Launch the game.
     
  2. ALT+Tab back to Windows.
     
  3. Open Task Manager and navigate to the Details tab.
     
  4. Right-click on NierAutomata.exe and select Set affinity.
     
  5. Uncheck every odd CPU.

Graphics card:
• AMD cards:
  
  • Perform a clean uninstall using DDU[www.wagnardsoft.com] followed by upgrading your drivers to v17.5.2[support.amd.com] or later, as v17.5.2 includes an official fix for the issue for AMD cards.
    
  • If v17.5.2 doesn't work then you can also downgrade to v16.11.5[support.amd.com] which have been reported to work as well for most cards.
  
  
• Nvidia cards:
  
  • v384.94 includes a fix for the issue plaguing the 780/780 Ti cards. It's unknown if this fix is applicable for other cards as well, but it is recommended to try the driver out. There's also v359.00, v365.10, v368.81, and v382.05 which have been reported to work better for some user.
    
  • Perform a clean uninstall using DDU[www.wagnardsoft.com] followed by upgrading to the latest available drivers.
    
  • Use GeForce Experience's "Optimize" feature.
  
  
• Do a clean reinstall of the latest drivers using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)[www.wagnardsoft.com]
  
• Disable and forcibly lower graphic settings even further through Nvidia or AMD's Control Panel
  
• Disable overclock if one exists (both custom and factory)
  
• Set the card to run at maximum performance
  
• Ensure that the desktop resolution in Windows is the same as the game is using
  
• Use a DirectX 11 to Vulkan[github.com] wrapper to run the game as Vulkan instead. Note however that this makes it impossible to use FAR with the game.
  
  
• Raise the TDR delay (see this Microsoft page[docs.microsoft.com]) from 2 seconds to e.g. 5 or 10. Warning: Use only for troubleshooting purposes. Restore the value if it doesn't solve it as these settings can have a negative effect in other applications/games if crashes occur.

Prologue/Tutorial-specific:
• Lower difficulty to Easy and equip every available "Auto XXX" plug-in chip and speedrun the section.
  
  • This will basically make the game play itself, but can help users run pass the section and avoid the issue entirely.
    
  • Just remember to raise the difficulty and unequip these plug-in chips as you arrive to the Bunker, as they would otherwise make the game too easy.

Game:
• Limit yourself to only use the Pod to fire. Some users have reported that certain on-hit effects when using the blade on the environment (steel/metal) in some areas can cause the crash.
  
• Use Alt+Enter when it occurs to swap between fullscreen and window mode (sometimes multiple times can be required)
  
• Play in Fullscreen Mode or in Windowed Mode
  
• Disable vsync
  
• Lower game settings to lowest and disable every graphics feature

Injectors:
• Limit/Disable third-party injectors/tools/mods that might interfere with the game (including the Steam overlay)