Connect audio from a USB device to a virtual machine.
Connect audio from a USB device to a virtual machine.
For my upcoming PC build, I aim to support AMD-Vi with IOMMU, since I plan to run a Linux environment and need a high-performance virtual machine suitable for audio middleware, digital audio workstations, and gaming. I’ll use Qemu for this purpose. My current setup includes a Focusrite USB 3.0 audio interface for headphones and speakers. I’m curious whether routing audio through the virtual Windows 10 instance will deliver the full 96kHz quality directly, or if it must go through PulseAudio on the host machine. If that happens, would it still provide low latency and high-resolution audio? Are there any adjustments I can make to the host configuration to resolve this issue? Please let me know if you need any additional details. Cheers.
I might be mistaken, but if you transferred the device to the VM, the hypervisor must still manage the session while communication remains close to direct hardware. If you're moving away from simulating an audio device and instead using a genuine USB port with a real device, it should act as if it's operating near bare metal. However, I can't comment on audio quality. It seems the issue might be related to how well the hypervisor is configured for its workload.
Usb devices can go straight through without needing IOMMU. They work fine as-is. The pulseaudio won’t interfere because the device runs directly in the virtual machine.