VMware View 5 Client playing audio

[KennyF]

We are in the process of rolling out the VMware View 5 clients and encountered an issue when audio is played through the client via the USB headset or the onboard audio. If the audio is played when the VDI client is idle, then it plays properly, but as soon as you start opening applications, installing applications, or do something resource intensive then the audio jitters. I've also tested a VOIP application to test voice quality, but this jitters as well when the VDI client does normal day to day tasks. I've added 8 CPUs and 8GB of RAM to the client to eliminate the possibility of it being the resources on the VM itself?

Has anyone else encountered this issue yet?

Many thanks,

Kenny

[Linjo]

Hi Kenny and welcome to the communities!

It would be interesting to know some more before coming with some suggestions:

What display protocol are you using? PCoIP or RDP?

What kind of clients is it?

What kind of connections is it?

How are the clients accessing the view desktop? (LAN/WAN/VPN, Security Server etc)

// Linjo

[KennyF]

Hi Linjo,

Thanks for coming back to me. The answers to your questions are as follows:

- We are using the PCoIP protocol.

- All the clients are linked-clones using a normal desktop PC with the VMware View 5 client installed to access their virtual desktops.

- They connect internally via 100MB LAN.

- There are no Security Servers, and only one View Connection Server.

We have two ESXi 4.1.0, 502767 servers in a separate cluster where our VDIs are set up. Let me know if you need more information.

[BrandonQ]

You might check out this kb article on teradici's website. They released a newer audio driver in October.

http://techsupport.teradici.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=15164&task=knowledge&questionID=770

[KennyF]

Hi Brandon

Many thanks for the link. I registered and downloaded the update and will test it on one of the test client. Just a quick question though - I was under the impression that the clients use VMware DevTap as the audio driver and not Teradici? Would this make a difference at all?

[BrandonQ]

The release notes indicate it supercedes the devtap driver. I havent tried it personally. I just stumbled upon the article while researching another issue I was having.

[KennyF]

I was really holding thumbs Brandon, but still no luck. I installed the Teradici audio driver and set it as default. Played an audio file and tested a VOIP call while uninstalling an application and the same jitter problem exists. Has nobody encountered this issue at all with their VDI set up?

[Linjo]

Have you played around with reservation for the VM?

Maybe set a reservation at 1000 Mhz and 1000 MB of memory could help.

// Linjo

[KennyF]

Linjo,

Yes, I tried a 5200Mhz reservation and your suggestion. It does however help with the onboard sound card audio much less jitter, but the USB audio still jitters constantly when opening or install applications.

[Linjo]

For me that is an indication that the limiting factor is bandwith, have a look at this blogpost in howto try to reduce the bandwith and increase audio quality:

http://itbloodpressure.com/2011/11/02/vmware-view-5-and-ms-lync/

// Linjo

[KennyF]

I now attempted the settings on the itbloodpressure blog. I decrease the frames per second, disabled the build-to-lossless feature and set the sound bandwidth to 150Kbps. The sound however still jitters when doing high resource tasks, and the sound quality is now much lower. Have you not experienced this issue at all? Try installing or uninstalling Office while on a VOIP call or playing an audio file.

[KennyF]

Update:

I decided to start at the beginning again by refreshing the linked-clone and did more research regarding VOIP in VMware View Client with Windows 7 and audio in general. I came across this thread http://communities.vmware.com/message/1778869 and this confirms Brandon's post regarding the Teradici audio driver. The Teradici audio driver combined with an anolog headset.works 100% for VOIP and general media playing. Is this the preferred or "golden rule" for audio setup in VMware View Client? I've read further that USB audio is slower, therefore not recommended. Is this true?

[DaIceMan]

Hello all,

  I wanted to post my feedback on the latest (10277) Teradici Virtual Audio driver, which we use regularly on all Win7 x64 VMs without major problems. Instead of starting a new thread, I reckoned this one was already appropriate.

  Firstly there was a mysterious bug that made the audio "vanish" from a VM from a Zero Client without reason -  only a reboot of the VM fixed this. This was fixed with the releases of the latest Zero Client firmwares (3.4.0 and 3.5.0 GA) and the latest release of the Virtual Audio driver (build 10277) and VIEW 5.

  We use the Teradici Virtual Audio Driver on all Win7 vms whether they are running from a Zero Client or soft VIEW client. The driver simply enables the microphone input (plus related audio output) on the hardware you are running the client from and prioritizes it so that it is more stable (less jitter) in heavier bandwidth loading conditions. The priority I believe is much higher than regular USB traffic, so it should work in theory better than having say a USB headset (unless there is a prioritization of this type of device/traffic somewhere in the related driver stack) which is what our experience showed. I thus suggest installing this driver by default on your golden image unless there are other reasons/incompatibilities not to.

  On a further note, we encountered a problem installing the Teradici driver on a couple of VMs, both Win7 64bit where the driver would simply fail to install reporting "return code 2". With some debugging, it appears there is a service start problem for some reason - evidently VM related to some prior driver or software being installed. All files are in the correct places (driver and inf) - it just doesn't complete the installation/service start. Anyhow the workaround is by manually executing the following command, after it has failed with code 2 and the window has been closed. From a shell type (in this case the inf path refers to the win7 64bit driver):

"c:\program files\common files\vmware\teradici pcoip server\driverinstaller\x64\driverinstaller.exe" restart "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Teradici PCoIP Server\AudioDriver\x64\Win7\TeraAudio.inf" ROOT\TERAAUDIO

  This instructs "driverinstaller" to restart the install and the service starts bypassing the problem. The driver successfully installs and the service is started. A reboot is required after to activate. If you have problems, rerun the above command with "remove" instead of restart, then run restart again. Remember to check in the control panel -> Audio page if the Driver is selected as default and not the devtap. Remember to run this check in all your applications' audio settings the first time you run them (skype, x-lite, Bria, etc) after install. In theory, VOIP traffic is not officially supported by vmware (yet...) though with VIEW 5 I must say it works pretty well, granting low latency conditions (<50ms) and available bandwidth.

  Luke