VMWare Player 12.5.7 - Linux Host/Win 10 Guest - Bad Audio?

[JeZLee]

Hi,

Been using VMWare Player for years with no problems.

I am using the most up to date VMWare Player version 12.5.7 build-5813279.

I have a Linux Mint 18.2 KDE 64Bit host

with a Windows 10 Pro 64Bit guest.

I have bad audio on the Win 10 guest.

I've tried everything available on the Internet to fix this issue

but it is still there.

(it's on 3 different desktops, so we can illuminate a hardware issue)

How do I fix bad audio on Win 10 guest?

(the Win 10 guest is Genuine and virus free)

If this is a known issue, when will Player be updated to fix this?

If you need additional information then just ask, thanks!

Jesse

[JeZLee]

Hi Again,

I attached my *.VMX file...

Hope we can fix this soon, I develop software in Win 10 guest and need audio working...

Thanks!

Jesse

[bluefirestorm]

I replied to you some months back on this thread Linux Host/Windows 10 Pro 64 Guest - Bad Audio?

Looks like the current setting you have now uses the Microsoft High Definition Audio driver as the vmx file has the line sound.virtualdev = "hdaudio". If you want to use the VMware audio driver, you can refer back to the old thread.

However, if the workaround is not satisfactory at all, especially if the development work involved requires good quality audio; perhaps, the solution is to use a hardware-based sound card such as USB sound card and attach it to the Windows VM as a USB passthrough device. Doing a quick search it would cost in the US$7-US$15 range.

One example: http://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=65_133_136&product_id=694

If I am not mistaken, Windows 10 Creators Update (aka 1703, aka build 15063) has native support for USB Audio Class 2.0 (UAC 2.0); but UAC 2.0 devices are way much more expensive.

[JeZLee]

Hi,

I am flat broke (no job)...

I was hoping there was *something* I could do now with what I have to fix the audio issue?

The audio works but there is this weird crackling noise which is constant?

I think this happened after updating Windows 10 to the Creators Update.

Everything else on the VM is 100%, just not the audio.

I make software on the VM which has music and effect so this is a critical issue for me now.

Any other help would be appreciated, thanks!

Jesse

[bluefirestorm]

You could refer to the previous thread and use the VMware Audio driver again.

Are you using ALSA in the Linux Mint host?

I don't know if Workstation Player supports ALSA on the VM guest as I don't see it in the documentation. But in the Workstation Pro documentation, there is mention that VMs can be configured to use an ALSA device with Linux hosts. Don't know if it will make any difference if you configure the Linux host to use ALSA and whether it will work in Workstation Player.

Here are some page bookmarks to look at regarding ALSA in Workstation documentation.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/12.0/workstation-pro-12-user-guide.pdf#page=18&zoo...

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/12.0/workstation-pro-12-user-guide.pdf#page=122&zo...

[bluefirestorm]

I think the ALSA references in the Workstation documentation is just outdated; looks like ALSA should be built-in to most modern Linux kernels now. I also looked at the VMware Workstation Player 12.5 on an Ubuntu 16.04 host and the drop-down list in the "Use sound card" option has the prefix "ALSA: ".

Anyway, another thing to try aside from switching the audio in the Windows 10 guest VM to VMware Audio is to play around with different sampling rates in both the host and guest VM to see (maybe listen than see) whether playback gets any better.