• Registered: 2019-03-27
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Topic: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

I have tried to get my fireface UFX working in wmare for some time no, with no luck.
Totalmix does not see any signal/sound on any inputs over USB.

I have installed latest drivers and firmware from rme.com, ufx shows up in windows playback-window. But if I rightclick for example AES and choose 'Test' - the meter on the right side goes 100% and stays there (no signal in Totalmix on the hardware or software input or the output), it will stay at 100% until i choose 'Stop Testing'.

I have testet the UFX on two other 'regular' windows computers and it works fine. So the problem is only in wmvare esxi.
I can controll the UFX in Totalmix in vmware, I testet with input from other source (spdif) and Totalmix and UFX communicates as normal.

Have also tried to reinstall (twice) a fresh install of windows 10 pro (64bit english) in vmware - same result, no sound out over usb.

Any suggestions? Can posts pictures of esxi setup values or windows device manager properties from the UFX.

2 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2019-03-27 19:06:29)

  • ramses
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

You should not mix virtualization and recording, I am pretty sure that something like this is not supported.

For recording the ASIO drivers need direct access to the physical hardware (USB controller), so you need a "baremetal" installation.

Even if such a setup would work, then you would much more likely get audio drops, as other VM instances will also make use of CPU cores. Also the latency, when CPU cores will be available for audio drivers and application, will be increased by the virtualization layer.

IMHO this is a very bad idea and I have strong doubts
a) that this is supported setup and -
b) even if USB would work - that you would get good results.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

In the past direct USB connection did not work. What did work, though, was using the emulated WDM audio driver of the virtual machine even with something like ASIO4ALL. Of course latencies were rather problematic.

  • Registered: 2019-03-27
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

ramses wrote:

You should not mix virtualization and recording, I am pretty sure that something like this is not supported.

For recording the ASIO drivers need direct access to the physical hardware (USB controller), so you need a "baremetal" installation.

Even if such a setup would work, then you would much more likely get audio drops, as other VM instances will also make use of CPU cores. Also the latency, when CPU cores will be available for audio drivers and application, will be increased by the virtualization layer.

IMHO this is a very bad idea and I have strong doubts
a) that this is supported setup and -
b) even if USB would work - that you would get good results.

USB passthrough gives the virual machine full access to the usb device.
Audio drops could maybe happen, but all the processing of the sound happens in the UFX so why should that be a problems? The virtual machine only need to transfeer the packets to the hardware.
Latency could of course be an issue, since the audio have to travel/routed 1 more layer(?) between the virtual machine, the esxi server and the hardware - but that I can accept, since I don't see any reasons for the delay to more than 1-2ms.

But this have to be something that either is supported or known not to work (and officially stated by RME)?

See that this post never got any answer: https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=24448

5 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2019-03-27 20:59:41)

  • ramses
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

> USB passthrough gives the virual machine full access to the usb device

Theoretically yes .. but does it work for you ?! There must be a reason why it doesn't work for you.
The only obvious reason that I see is the virtualization layer that at the end is there.
Do you know how USB passthrough is being implemented ? Surely not.
All we see is, that it does not work.

> Audio drops could maybe happen, but all the processing of the sound happens in the UFX so why should that be a problems?

Sorry, but you completely forget the PC side and how a PC works.

> Latency could of course be an issue, since the audio have to travel/routed 1 more layer(?) between the virtual machine,
> the esxi server and the hardware - but that I can accept, since I don't see any reasons for the delay to more than 1-2ms.

I didn't talk about RTL (round trip latency) between recording interface and PC.
I talk about the latencies inside the computer that can i.e. be measured using LatencyMon.

If a CPU is not able to process audio data in time, then you get audio drops.
Reasons for this can be CPU load and a high DPC load and bad written programs and drivers.
It can be a pain already on baremetal.
What I mean is, this won't become any better by a virtualization layer in between.
And usually you also do not give one VM all CPU cores, or all your other VMs get issues.

People working in the IT know
1. that for performance critical server you have to install on bare metal.
And for audio processing I would definitively raise this as a strong requirement.
2. even for some applications the support is excluded if you run them on virtualized environment.
Also these exclusions have reasons.

And as time and performance critical recording / audio processing is .. you can be sure that virtualization is not the way to go. It's a bad idea to base a recording system on a VM, you also do not build a house onto sand.

> See that this post never got any answer: https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=24448

Most likely it simply was overlooked as there is not good answer for it besides "better don't do it".

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2019-03-27
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

I'm not building a recordin system or anything 'critical' - just want a plain audio output from a virtual machine.

I note your skepticism, but thank you for your input.

7 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2019-03-27 22:48:11)

  • ramses
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

torbjorn wrote:

I'm not building a recordin system or anything 'critical' - just want a plain audio output from a virtual machine.

I note your skepticism, but thank you for your input.

AFAIR the Apple issues last seen were also there when only playing back audio.

I had myself issues with a Lenovo Laptop that required a ridicolous high ASIO buffersize
of 256 ASIO buffers to be able to playback only a stereo track.
The issue was the GPU inside of the CPU.
Luckily I had a dedicated GPU. When configuring Firefox to use the dedicated nVidia GPU all issues were gone.
Audio playback worked with minimum ASIO buffersize (48 for the old UFX) and I could browse the internet without issues.

Windows and also MacOS X are no realtime operating systems. Thus audio can be a fragile thing at times.
The only thing that brings stability is to follow "best practises" to avoid some things that have negative impact.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
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  • Registered: 2018-08-18
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

torbjorn wrote:

Any suggestions?

How are you physically connecting the UFX, and to where ?
eg Direct to esxi server or to the remote terminal you're accessing the vm from ?

Also how are you connecting to your vm; vmware player / vmware workstation / rdp ?

HDSPe AES + HDSPe RayDat + HDSPe MADI
ADI-2 mk.1 x2 + other converters
Cubase + VEP
  • Registered: 2019-03-27
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

snoskit wrote:
torbjorn wrote:

Any suggestions?

How are you physically connecting the UFX, and to where ?
eg Direct to esxi server or to the remote terminal you're accessing the vm from ?

Also how are you connecting to your vm; vmware player / vmware workstation / rdp ?

UFX is connected with USB to the server, which runs vmware esxi 6.7. I then enable usb passthrough on that usb-device to my (virtual) windows-machine.

Since i'm running esxi (not workstation or fusion), i log into the browser and open a 'console view' to that machine.
Have also tried to use Teamviewer just to test - same conclusion.

  • From: UK/CH
  • Registered: 2018-08-18
  • Posts: 43

Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

Few things to try - might work, might not


From the vm usb properties set it to usb 2
vmware's usb3 driver has always had issues


Set vm to high latency; this can be done from the esxi web interface: vm -> "Edit settings" -> vmware options -> advanced -> Latency sensitivity = "High"


Install VMRC - VMware Remote Console

https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/det … ductId=742

VMRC allows you to connect a local usb device to a remote esxi server vm
I would try this option instead of directly attaching your UFX to the esxi server

From the esxi web interface, a VMRC window can be opened by "console" -> "launch remote console"
Once the console is open, "VMRC menu" -> "Removable Devices" -> [device selection list] = select the UFX


few further "long shots" options to try

Give this a go without installing ufx drivers on local machine

Give this a go with installing ufx drivers on local machine and setting as windows default

Give this a go with installing ufx drivers on local machine and not setting as windows default

Try changing the network interface adapter type:
esxi web interface -> vm -> "Edit Settings" -> expand "network adapter 1" -> "adapter type" = "VMXNET 2 (Enhanced)"




You might get some sound out if you're lucky
Won't be stable


If you have access to vmware workstation; use this - its faster and works a bit better for this type of thing

HDSPe AES + HDSPe RayDat + HDSPe MADI
ADI-2 mk.1 x2 + other converters
Cubase + VEP

11 Reply by torbjorn (edited by torbjorn 2019-03-28 23:01:46)

  • Registered: 2019-03-27
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

Thanks for your input and suggestions, snoskit. Appreciate the effort!

Tested high latency: no difference
VRMC: no difference
USB2 or USB3: no difference
VMXNET: more unstable in general, no difference to the sound problem

Also tried a new server, xeon 8cores, 32gb ram - same experience. Finds and can controll the soundcard but no sound out over usb.

Ok. Giving up on this now.. will try hyper-v instead.

  • ramses
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

torbjorn wrote:

I note your skepticism, but thank you for your input

torbjorn wrote:

Ok. Giving up on this now.. will try hyper-v instead.

Sorry, but exactly this I expected, high work factor and no satisfactory results.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • From: UK/CH
  • Registered: 2018-08-18
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

ramses wrote:

high work factor and no satisfactory results.

The basic technique here of connecting usb to vm's is still very useful know about

I use it a daily basis for studio work, to resurrect a Roland XV5050's editor software - usb into daw pc - redirected into windows xp vm via vmware workstation - Roland software runs fine inside vm

torbjorn wrote:

Ok. Giving up on this now.. will try hyper-v instead.

Good luck

HDSPe AES + HDSPe RayDat + HDSPe MADI
ADI-2 mk.1 x2 + other converters
Cubase + VEP
  • ramses
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

ASIO driver might be different to your use case.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2019-03-27
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

ramses wrote:
torbjorn wrote:

I note your skepticism, but thank you for your input

torbjorn wrote:

Ok. Giving up on this now.. will try hyper-v instead.

Sorry, but exactly this I expected, high work factor and no satisfactory results.

Why so negative?

If you don't try something 'new', you'll never learn anything. (I know, sounds like a cliche..) I learned several things today and dusted off an server, installed win server 2019 and are playing with hyper-v now. This IS a good result for me.

People are different.

16 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2019-03-30 09:46:54)

  • ramses
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Re: wmvare esxi 6.5 - Windows 10 + UFX = No sound on usb

Not negative, simply realistic ;-)
In my job I am specialist in differnet fields of IT: network, os, server, virtualization.

Look, this is a pro audio vendor forum and I gave you my view on things in terms of best practises with the best intentions to save you time and eventually also frustration.

No Pro would base his stuff on a virtualized setup. Of course you are free to try and experiment if you have time and fun to do it. But as I said, don't expect vendor support. Nobody would expect such a setup to work and actively support this.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14