Help! Struggling with Nvidia Audio passthrough

[MattB]

New Guy here! Built a new PC a few months ago for the first time in many years, and already decided to swap from a baremetal Windows 10 setup to a dual VM Unraid setup. Admittedly, it was sparked by the 2 gamers 1 CPU video. Here's a rundown of the hardware I'm running before I get into the issues.

 

ASRock Extreme 4 Z370 Motherboard

Intel 8700K currently OC'd @ 4.5GHz

3 WD Red 4TB HDDs

2 WD Black M.2 NVME 512GB SSDs

1 EVGA 1080 Ti 11Gb

1 EVGA 1060 6Gb

32Gb Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz RGB PRO Ram 

Corsair AX1200 Power Supply 

 

So being completely new to Linux, I've gotten both GPUs and USB controllers to pass through to their associated VMs and almost everything has gone okay so far. I'm now facing an issue with the Message Signaled Interrupts that I cannot solve for the life of me. I have read through and applied the fix on the Guru3D forum in as many combinations as possible. Currently I have the MSI supported key applied as shown with the value of "1" and it seems to have enabled the MSI Interrupt on the video portion of my graphics card, but I am still struggling to do the same to fix the audio portion.

 

I have also attempted the fix which I found in this thread here using the Putty tool. 

 

 

Also, I'm having problems with loading videos in a browser, and I'm hopeful that this is the same issue. Any help you guys could provide would be very much appreciated. Attached are some screenshots for reference. I have 2 Windows 10 Pro VMs setup and I need to implement the fix for both. So far I have been focusing on my main VM with the 1080 Ti. 

 

If there is any information I'm missing or steps I've overlooked, please let me know. Thanks again!

 

Edit:

 

Also just attempted the fix in this thread with no luck.

 

https://www.labsrc.com/unraid-nvidia-gpu-passthrough-fix-qemu/

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2018 by MattB

[david279]

Use this app 

 

https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/MSI-utility

 

Run it as administrator

[MattB]

Could you give me a quick explanation of how to work it? I downloaded it but see no option to run a program. Thanks!

 

[saarg]

You haven't enabled msi for the audio part of the GPU. Download the tool that is linked earlier in this thread and run it as administrator on the VM. Choose the audio devices and reboot the vm. 

[MattB]

I'm aware that I need to enable the audio portion of the GPU and I have downloaded the file that is linked in this thread. But I am unfamilar with GitHub or how to run a program from there. Is there a resource of some kind that I can use to understand how to run this program? All I see when I download is a set of files in a folder.

 

[david279]

Download it from the release TAB, thats the source files.

Edited December 2, 2018 by david279

[MattB]

Thanks! I apologize, I feel like the solution is right in front of me and I can't figure it out. But here is what I see when open the program. It is not listing any devices.

 

Thanks again for you guys' help.

[david279]

Run it as administrator

[MattB]

Finally got it solved guys. I appreciate the help. Would it be good to apply the MSI fix to all devices listed in the program such as USB controllers, etc.? Or just necessary devices like the graphics cards.

 

Here are the steps I took for reference.

 

Download the first .zip file here: https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/MSI-utility/releases/tag/2.0

Locate the file under download in Windows File explorer.

Copy and Paste the file into Program Files (x86).

Right click and run as administrator. 

Select the needed Nvidia devices and click apply.

Restart VM.

[bdsargent]

I had MSI enabled for both audio and video on my Nvidia card a while back, but I don't use the VM often and didn't notice it was gone until the 'demonic' audio came back last week. Manually adding the 'MSISupported' entry in the registry worked like a charm for video/display, but I just couldn't get the audio to enable after dozens of registry updates and reboots. Then I came across this post and tried the MSI Utility tool, which of course worked like a dream. 

 

So if anyone else has gone through the steps to manually enable MSI on your Nvidia and it never sticks, this tool is your salvation! Thanks!

[JackSafari]

On 12/1/2018 at 7:10 PM, david279 said:

Use this app 

 

https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/MSI-utility

 

Run it as administrator

 

CHEF-KOCK nolonger exists on github. Does anyone have a copy of this utility or know where on github it is now located?

 

Currently the sound from my GPU out to my monitor (HDMI) has random static and\or occasionally has drop outs for a few milliseconds. Read somewhere that it might be related to interrupts conflicts, such as mouse movement.

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by JackSafari
spelling correction

[ghost82]

2 hours ago, JackSafari said:

Does anyone have a copy of this utility

Attached v2 and v3

MSI_util_v2.zip MSI_util_v3.zip

[JackSafari]

50 minutes ago, ghost82 said:

Attached v2 and v3

MSI_util_v2.zip 12.96 kB · 2 downloads MSI_util_v3.zip 15.61 kB · 2 downloads

 

Thanks. This solved the audio problems I was having. Took less than 1 minute, including rebooting the Windows 10 VM.

 

I would like to better understand what the utility is actually doing and if the same thing can be accomplished in the Unraid Webui or making config changes inside the VM, but maybe not as easily\quickly as the utility. 

 

[ghost82]

3 hours ago, JackSafari said:

I would like to better understand what the utility is actually doing and if the same thing can be accomplished in the Unraid Webui or making config changes inside the VM, but maybe not as easily\quickly as the utility. 

Here is a good description of what the utility does:

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windows-line-based-vs-message-signaled-based-interrupts-msi-tool.378044/

 

Basically, it enables msi support for devices that support it, with registry changes.

With msi disabled different devices can share the same irq, that's fine for some, there won't be any issue, but for some devices it becomes problematic; usually with gpu (audio and video), onboard audio and network.

Usually you will find usb controllers sharing irq with something else, gpu for example.

I was having issues especially with gpu, in my build shared irq existed for usb controller, infiniband network, gpu and onboard audio: connecting to remote desktop via infiniband with shared irq generated instability with connection drops; with the utility I was able to resolve most of them, unfortunately I still have an irq shared between usb controller and the infiniband network; if I enable msi for infiniband the device doesn't start (some error code, I don't remember), maybe some driver issues since that card is very old. So play with care with msi, especially for devices needed to boot the vm.

 

You can't do that changes from the host, but only within the vm.

Edited December 23, 2021 by ghost82

[JackSafari]

@ghost82 Thanks, excellent article on the topic of Windows IRQs. I have followed the technical work of Mark Russinovich since the mid 90s; he is a master of the deep inner workings of the Windows OS.

Edited December 23, 2021 by JackSafari

[EnemyLemon]

What else might be preventing nvidia from being detected as a sound output device?  

I have passed through my 1070ti gpu and sound card, and have enabled MSI interrupts.

Device Manager shows the NVidia HD Audio, but windows does not detect an output device.


 

Edited December 23, 2021 by EnemyLemon
grammar

[EnemyLemon]

14 minutes ago, EnemyLemon said:

What else might be preventing nvidia from being detected as a sound output device?  

I have passed through my 1070ti gpu and sound card, and have enabled MSI interrupts.

Device Manager shows the NVidia HD Audio, but windows does not detect an output device.


 

... yet I don't see a specific Nvidia soundcard in the MSI interrupt list. Just this Microsoft HD Audio controller and driver.
Both GPU and sound card seem to be properly selected in the VM config...

Thanks for any insights! 
 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by EnemyLemon

[ghost82]

12 hours ago, EnemyLemon said:

I don't see a specific Nvidia soundcard in the MSI interrupt list

There is, if you look at the properties the high definition audio controller (hdau) is that of nvidia (10de is the nvidia vendor id) and msi is enabled.

Not sure why windows reports that the output is not plugged in; however does your hdau audio works or not?

May be an issue with the topology in the vm xml, check that hdau is in the same bus and slot of the video, different function (multifunction='on' for the video portion); search the forum to set multifunction gpu.

[JackSafari]

My configure is 99% identical to the screen shots, only difference is the GPU; I have GTX 1060. 

 

One interesting observation is that before I got the audio fully working, I had sound simply by adding the GPU video and audio to the VM config. I didn't even use a ripped vbios. I added the vbios later after I figured out how to rip the vbios from my GPU (I did not download it from the internet). I needed to apply IRQ fix because the GPU audio was unacceptable. Applying the fix is unlikely to correct the problem of no audio.

 

My troubling suggestion #1 is to make sure that the VM is the only thing running, no other VMs or Docker containers, or anything else that might tie up audio. #2 Build a new VM if nobody else can come up with something else to try; it possible something got corrupted (ie xml config), overlooked, or is a bug such as being able to hand modify the XML to include incorrect items that passes the validation when pressing Apply.  When modifying the XML for a VM, use the Apply button in the non-XML view to make sure the the XML validates correctly. 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by JackSafari

[EnemyLemon]

10 hours ago, JackSafari said:

My configure is 99% identical to the screen shots, only difference is the GPU; I have GTX 1060. 

 

One interesting observation is that before I got the audio fully working, I had sound simply by adding the GPU video and audio to the VM config. I didn't even use a ripped vbios. I added the vbios later after I figured out how to rip the vbios from my GPU (I did not download it from the internet). I needed to apply IRQ fix because the GPU audio was unacceptable. Applying the fix is unlikely to correct the problem of no audio.

 

My troubling suggestion #1 is to make sure that the VM is the only thing running, no other VMs or Docker containers, or anything else that might tie up audio. #2 Build a new VM if nobody else can come up with something else to try; it possible something got corrupted (ie xml config), overlooked, or is a bug such as being able to hand modify the XML to include incorrect items that passes the validation when pressing Apply.  When modifying the XML for a VM, use the Apply button in the non-XML view to make sure the the XML validates correctly. 

 

 

 

14 hours ago, ghost82 said:

There is, if you look at the properties the high definition audio controller (hdau) is that of nvidia (10de is the nvidia vendor id) and msi is enabled.

Not sure why windows reports that the output is not plugged in; however does your hdau audio works or not?

May be an issue with the topology in the vm xml, check that hdau is in the same bus and slot of the video, different function (multifunction='on' for the video portion); search the forum to set multifunction gpu.

Once I switched to a monitor with optical out, the system detects an output.  So there was no issue here, just no output device present in my first monitor's EDID.  Thanks to both of you for the suggestions; I learned some things!

[JackSafari]

10 hours ago, EnemyLemon said:

 

Once I switched to a monitor with optical out, the system detects an output.  So there was no issue here, just no output device present in my first monitor's EDID.  Thanks to both of you for the suggestions; I learned some things!

 

When I started building the Unraid system I was using cheap monitor that goes immediately into sleep mode (less then 5 seconds) if it can't find a video signal on the HDMI Ports. This caused problems during the initial hardware setup because during boot the PC BIOS would start looking for a monitor connected and if could not find one, it turned off the video signal. The Unraid system was booting fine from the thumb drive, but there was no video being displayed on the monitor. I could access Unraid using the WebUI from another system on the network. I finally just switched to a different monitor and it solved the problem; the replacement monitor is always scanning for a signal on the unactive HDMI ports, the cheap monitor just turns its self off within a few seconds when no video signal is detected on the HDMI ports. I wasted at least a couple of hours just trying to get video to work.

Edited December 25, 2021 by JackSafari

[EnemyLemon]

Happy to report that GPU and audio passthrough are working perfectly now. 

 

Is the MSI-utility still under development at a different repository? Being  that it's no longer available from CHEF-KOCH, I'm sure other new users will need a reliable link.

[JackSafari]

12 hours ago, EnemyLemon said:

Happy to report that GPU and audio passthrough are working perfectly now. 

 

Is the MSI-utility still under development at a different repository? Being  that it's no longer available from CHEF-KOCH, I'm sure other new users will need a reliable link.

 

Several days ago I spent 30 minutes looking for it on Github and could not find it, but at least for now, the older version still works and can be downloaded from Ghost82's previous posts.

 

[ghost82]

I swear I didn't inject any virus in that files