RE: Audio on Windows Vista x64/Windows 7 guests

[nbi]

Sorry, but I tried the current 64 bit Realtek AC97 driver with Win7 guest hosted on 64 bit Debian Squeeze (testing).

It does not work. The audio is so choppy as to be useless. I'm better off just disabling it.

I used cpuset to partition the available cpus for XP32 and it improved the audio immensely. However the same approach is not working for Win7 64 bit so there must be something else going on. At any rate just using the latest 64 bit Realtek driver does not solve the problem.

[Perryg]

You can install and run pavcontrol on the host and the guest Windows sound will improve if you have pulse audio on the host.

[nbi]

You can install and run pavcontrol on the host and the guest Windows sound will improve if you have pulse audio on the host.

Thanks. I don't know anything about PulseAudio. Is it mutually exclusive with ALSA or can they coexist side by side?

[Perryg]

Actually no. If you do not see pulse audio then you can not use the pavcontrol AFAIK

[nbi]

Actually no. If you do not see pulse audio then you can not use the pavcontrol AFAIK

So why does VirtualBox make AC97 via ALSA the default sound device?

Would it be worth it to try the other default audio device "soundblaster 16"? The audio doesn't need to be high fidelity, just not choppy.

[Perryg]

I don't think it will work. the soundblaster is 16 bit legacy drivers.

[nbi]

I don't think it will work. the soundblaster is 16 bit legacy drivers.

You are correct. The Windows 7 compatibility center lists Soundblaster 16 as incompatible for both 32 & 64 bit.

[nbi]

I made an interesting discovery. Selecting PulseAudio as audio device results in a huge improvement in sound quality. The choppiness and scratchiness are almost completely gone.

There's one little problem with this. The PulseAudio server isn't running. In fact it isn't even installed. The only thing installed that is PulseAudio related are the client libraries:

dpkg --list|grep pulse
ii libpulse0 0.9.21-1 PulseAudio client libraries

I don't get it. How can the libraries make a difference when there is no running server?? Very screwy.

BTW, the audio improvement even occured in XP32 even though that was pretty good already.

[Perryg]

Then install the pavcontrol. Leave it running in the host and you should have decent sound in the guest.

[nbi]

As I mentioned in my previous post the PulseAudio Server isn't running! pavucontrol (there is no pavcontrol) needs a running instance of the server. But that doesn't seem to be needed as merely selecting PulseAudio as the audio device in VB makes a huge difference. That suggests that the audio problem is rooted in how VB connects audio to the host and is not an inherent flaw of ALSA.

[mikescandy]

I'm having the same problem, but host is 7 x64, not Linux
General performance is good, but audio sounds choppy and makes lots of pops.
I'm using ac97 audio drivers on the guest. any idea?