Virtual Desktop Audio doesn't output to anything. [Solved]

[darthokkata]

What the title says.

I'm on Windows 10 and am using the headphone jack on my HMD, but the problem persists no matter where I plug in my audio out on my PC, all my available options don't recieve audio output when using Virtual Desktop Audio. VD doesn't connect to any audio output on my computer at all for some reason.

I've poked around in the Windows sound settings and haven't found an obvious fix.

I can switch over to another output device and get sound. For example I can select Headphones from the Playback Devices list and get sound. So I'm not left without any audio in VR, but this means I can't use Milkdrop to visualize music, or the audio settings in the VD GUI.

I have a WMR HMD, but it's the same for any other plug for sound output on my PC. I get no audio out using VD's audio driver.

I usually get audio out for my PC from my GPU's HDMI port if I'm not using headphones, and through my WMR through headphones with the audio jack on the HMD. VD's native audio does not detect my HDMI audio out either.

Opening the sound manger shows that the audio is going to it, as the green bar is moving up and down. Nothing is muted.

Opening properties shows "no jack information available".

Use Virtual Audio Driver is checked off, and the volume level is maxed out, but no sound.

I've also disabled exclusive control on VD audio and the headphones I'm trying to use, but that does nothing. I still get no sound using the Virtual Desktop audio driver.

In my device manager the drivers are up to date and it shows up in the list of audio output devices and has no error messages. It just doesn't seem to be outputting to anything.

Any ideas on how to force it to use the audio output I need it to be using?

Like I said, I can get sound, but it disables the audio features in VD and Milkdrop doesn't work unless I'm using Virtual Desktop's audio driver, which means I can either look at pretty colors reacting to music I can't hear, or listen to music and watch the colors not react to anything.

Kind of stumped here.

[MonkeyGamesVR]

I think they have fixed this in the last update, could be wrong tho. Do you use an external mixer for this to produce the output to the peripherals??

[darthokkata]

No. It's plugged directly into my computer with no 3rd party audio software or external audio devices aside from the VR HMD itself.

I've tried every audio out port on my PC with the same results.

I'm up to date with updates, and I've also tried the beta. Neither fixes the issue.

The native VD audio output doesn't connect to any output on my PC. No jack information available.

[ggodin]

The way the virtual audio driver works is it at startup, it detects the selected playback device then changes it to the virtual audio device and then outputs to the original one. SteamVR can mess that up when it starts (make sure to have all the audio settings set to not change anything). That being said, there might be specific sound cards with which the virtual audio driver doesn’t work. If you can email me a dxdiag to [e-mail], I can try to repro locally and find why the redirection isn’t working.

That being said, when the Virtual Audio Driver option is unchecked and you aren’t using a Rift, Virtual Desktop shouldn’t be doing anything related to audio so I’m a bit puzzled. I’ll look into it once I have the dxdiag. Thanks!

[darthokkata]

Originally posted by ggodin:

The way the virtual audio driver works is it at startup, it detects the selected playback device then changes it to the virtual audio device and then outputs to the original one. SteamVR can mess that up when it starts (make sure to have all the audio settings set to not change anything). That being said, there might be specific sound cards with which the virtual audio driver doesn’t work. If you can email me a dxdiag to [e-mail], I can try to repro locally and find why the redirection isn’t working.

That being said, when the Virtual Audio Driver option is unchecked and you aren’t using a Rift, Virtual Desktop shouldn’t be doing anything related to audio so I’m a bit puzzled. I’ll look into it once I have the dxdiag. Thanks!

This was it. Steam VR's and/or WMR's audio settings was screwing with it.

I had Steam VR and WMR set up to make sure audio out was going to my headphones when I turned on my HMD. So VD wasn't connecting to either one.

I disabled that setting in both and was able to get it to work.

Seems I have to do that manually prior to turning on my HMD if I want to use VD's audio settings and Milkdrop.

Thing is, the headphones plugged into my HMD don't show up on my playback devices list until I turn on the HMD by starting the WMR GUI.

What I have to do, is turn on my HMD, switch the playback device over to my headphones, turn off VR, and then turn it on again so that it's already set to the headphone out when I start VR again. That only takes a second or two, so it's no big deal.

Alternately I can just use a jack on my PC itself and set the audio out before starting VR. If VD was a room scale experience that might be an issue, but since it's a seated thing that's no big deal.

I think this is mostly a WMR issue, but Steam was probably contributing.

It works so I'm happy.

[AKIWA KAMI ❧ OwO |VR|]

uwu; thanx; disabled virtual desktop audio driver. finally can mix again +4

[milk : () { : | : & } ; :]

7.1 surround sound audio doesnt work properly if you have senheisser hd650 like me i have to set it to left and right sound only