VM audio passthrough?

[MrBill10]

Anyone done it? How...?

R710 running ESXi 6.0 Enterprise Plus, vCenter & Web Client. Not looking for home theater stuff, just need to listen to audio while watching youtube.

What info I can google up says to passthrough a USB port and use USB speakers on the client, but (as of 5.1) also says you lose the ability to boot from a USB stick, which I do. If absolutely necessary I'll change the boot order but what are my options?

Thanks

 

[yinan]

Have you tried via RDP?

Passing through an entire USB controller is kinda overkill. If you really need to do this, what you could do is get a USB sound card and plug the speakers and just pass the USB device, NOT the port, through to the VM.

But I would really just use RDP its much easier and more responsive. You do not even lose vMotion capability when you do it that way.

 

[Dahak]

yinan, is on the right track.

You would have to look at
1 - pass through the usb audio device if possible
2 - if that will not work, you many need to pass through 1 of the usb controller. In that case you just have to figure out which one, as there would be usually 2+ listed

 

[JeffMD]

Wha huh? Again, what is the difficulty?

 

[MrBill10]

Thanks all. The difficulty is wrapping my head around the concept.

I'll pick up a USB sound card and learn to get it working through RDP.

 

[yinan]

You dont need a USB sound card if you connect via RDP. I am listening to music now via RDP from a Win7 VM hsoted on ESXi running on a Dell R920.

 

[MrBill10]

I'll be damned... The sound works when using RDP in Win7Pro (both VM and client), and without doing any setup.