[SOLVED] So how do you do "gaming rig" VM without onboard audio?

[edgeinterface]

I won't hide that I came to unraid lured by Linus' videos featuring unraid capabilities of virtualizing Windows machines on top of NAS, PLEX, whatever.

Now when I tried few things I can see that either:

- it's same kind of bullshit as with any other linux I ever tried (it works for people who spent a year fiddling with config files and hacking binaries and whatever)

- my hardware is so weird unraid is not able to deal with it (yeah right, i7-6700k + Asus Z170-A + MSI GTX780 this is really exotic combo nowadays)

 

My main issue is as I stated in subject: how can you advertise unraid as a platform for hosting "gaming rig" quality VMs when something so basic as onboard audio is a total showstopper?

I watched jonp giving interviews saying with straight face you can run your gaming rig on top of you NAS and entertainment server and dockers and whatnot. So what kind of gaming rig doesn't use sound card? In times of twitch, teamspeak, MMOs, youtube, etc. how can you do gaming rig without playing AND recording sound? Thing that onboard sound chip is totally capable of doing without need for external devices like usb or pci cards.

 

So am I missing something here or it's just simple case of "well, sucks to be you, it works for us. bye"?

 

Sorry for being jaded but I really hoped unraid will be a solution for my work and leasure IT related needs. And now it seems it's just another pipe dream.

[monk100]

Why not pass though audio with HDMI on your 780?

[edgeinterface]

Because I don't use hdmi with any of my 2 monitors (ROG SWIFT PG279Q - display port only, Dell U2412M - DVI only).

And isn't hdmi audio output only anyway? How can you use skype without input? Yeah, how do you skype in unraid windows VMs world?

[Brownboy]

Do you have an option to select the onboard audio from the sound card drop down menu when setting up the windows vm. I would passthrough both hdmi audio and onboard sound. If you selected both and the vm starts up without an error try installing the sound card drivers from your motherboard manufacture website.

[edgeinterface]

That's the thing: I can see my onboard sound card in combo box but when I select it (either as the only one or as secondary to GPU's audio) my VM reports errors in log and becomes unusable (freezes, VM can't be stopped / forced stopped, host is hanging, only way to get control back is hard reset of the whole box).

 

Error from log is like this:

 

2016-04-29T11:08:33.698007Z qemu-system-x86_64: vfio: Cannot reset device 0000:00:1f.3, no available reset mechanism.

 

This device is my onboard sound card (same number is showing up in webGUI when setting up VM).

 

I already tried both types of VM BIOS (SeaBIOS and OMVF) and there's the same issue everytime. I didn't even got into trying to install drivers for my onboard audio in VM because of freezing / hanging problems I mentioned above.

 

My idea was to setup 2 main VMs, one for work (software development stuff + skype for work calls) and one for fun (games, movies, music, skype with friends, general relax time stuff) and maybe few other "background" VMs with sql / exchange / domino servers for "work lab environment" (those obviously wouldn't need passthrough GPU nor audio, just remote desktop for administration / maintenance stuff). But now my plan is getting more and more unrealistic since I can't get past that simple thing with audio.

[ShawnClark]

My system doesn't have onboard audio and I don't use the HDMI audio.  On my Windows 10 gaming VM, I use is a 7.1 USB audio dongle (pass-through) connected to my 5.1 audio speaker system.  It also has an audio input.  This should work for your situation.

[edgeinterface]

Thanks for your input, buying more stuff is always a possibility. I only wonder if with my luck this also won't turn up to be another 'nope' moment.

 

Is really passthrough for onboard sound chip so crazy to implement? I don't thing those chips are so much different and Asus is not some kind of ghetto manufacturer so I can't stop to ask same question: why something so common and basic is so hard to do while you are able to passthrough whole frikking GPU which I bet is much more complex than audio IO?

[TiHKAL]

I use my onboard sound without issue but I am a generation behind you. (Only mentioning it is possible)

 

I think the newest chipsets aren't 100% compatible.

[edgeinterface]

That's something that gives hope. On the other hand my "newest" chipset is already like a year old, both Skylake and Z170 are not so fresh anymore so one can only wonder what praised and proud linux community who always bolsters "thousands of improvements by millions of volunteers within mere minutes from detection" is doing? C'mon guys, prove me wrong

[Brownboy]

Im not sure what your iommu groups look like but you can always try turning on PCIe ACS Override in settings virtmanager and see if that helps. I think linus mentioned somthing in his videos about the skylake processors having poor iommu groupings when it comes to onboard audio passthrough.

[edgeinterface]

Yep, I tried that too without any luck. But will give it another try because maybe I didn't do it correctly. Also not much else I can do right now, it's almost midnight and shops with electronics are closed so I can't go and impulse buy usb sound card to pass it through

[edgeinterface]

Ok guys, passthrough works fine for my onboard audio. I just had to pay more attention to what I read on forums and what my webGUI shows me. I don't say it couldn't be more user friendly but now that I know what had to be done it's easy enough.

 

First of all when I enabled ACS override in VM Manager it said that reboot is required for change to take effect. So I stopped array and rebooted system. What I didn't notice was that this setting wasn't really applied. After my last response I went into VM manager again just to double check and low and behold that yellow-ish warning was still there. After 3rd reboot I realized something is not working as it should here so I searched this issue. Apparently solution is to add manually some magic commands to syslinux config:

 

default /syslinux/menu.c32

menu title Lime Technology, Inc.

prompt 0

timeout 50

label unRAID OS GUI Mode

  menu default

  kernel /bzimage

  append intel_iommu=on pcie_acs_override=downstream vfio_iommu_type1.allow_unsafe_interrupts=1 initrd=/bzroot,/bzroot-gui

 

After this change and reboot warning in VM manager went away so I added my onboard audio as secondary sound card to my Win10 VM and started it up.

First moments were little dissapointing: windows logo showed up, then login screen, then... darkness.

Ok, so now even no picture! Great!

 

Log showed familiar errors about reset. I decided to make some green&orange tee and write another flame post about how shitty this whole thing was.

 

When I got back few minutes later I saw Win10 desktop and some new icons in notification tray. 2 icons of speakers! 2 icons of speakers without red cross on them which meant - oh god, can it be true? - Win10 VM was detecting my headphones in my front panel?

 

Quick run to youtube, first video and YES! the sound of some lame song that apparently is popular now blasted from my headphones.

Installed skype and called test service to check if mic works too. It did.

So now all that is left is to pass my whole usb hub that I use to connect pendrives, phones, webcam and dvd burner (yep I got usb one to free one sata port on my mobo for additional hdd).

 

Final notes:

- OVMF BIOS doesn't work for me. VM doesn't even blink its initial boot message, it just hangs until gets killed. So I have to use SeaBIOS.

- machine i440fx-2.5 is fine

- I had to enable ACS override in syslinux config, webGUI didn't work for some reason (beta 21 so maybe just some minor bug?)

 

So, I will mark this as solved, maybe it will help some other poor guy who is not seeing things everybody seems to see.

And to all guys who took a moment to respond to my posts big thank you for not leaving me alone even when I was snarky and whiny.

 

I hope unraid will only get better and all those newbie traps will get fixed, improved, explained, described.

Now I am again full of hope for nicely separating my work stuff from my play stuff and maybe finally getting that NAS and media streaming going on.

[charleslam]

I can relate to the anger.  im having a tough time myself.  usb headsets do not play well either with unraid.  

[UntouchedWagons]

For unrelated reasons I bought a Fiio E10K USB DAC. Maybe if you got something like that you could pass it through to the VM.

[trevor4n]

On 4/29/2016 at 9:09 PM, edgeinterface said:

OVMF BIOS doesn't work for me

is this still the case?

On 4/29/2016 at 9:09 PM, edgeinterface said:

machine i440fx-2.5 is fine

have you updated?

On 4/29/2016 at 9:09 PM, edgeinterface said:

intel_iommu=on pcie_acs_override=downstream vfio_iommu_type1.allow_unsafe_interrupts=1

has this changed much for you in the years since?

On 4/29/2016 at 9:09 PM, edgeinterface said:

media streaming going on

have you been able to stream from you unraid setup recently?