Low latency audio for Windows 11 guest

Operating Systems & Open Source Virtualization
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1

Hi everyone.

I’m looking for an advice on how to setup my guest OS and VM for best low latency audio.

I run Windows 11 Pro VM in the virt-manager for my professional work on a Fedora Workstation 44 with the following specs:

Summary

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Hardware Information:

  • Hardware Model: ASUS TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS

  • Memory: 32.0 GiB

  • Processor: AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X × 32

  • Graphics: Intel® Arc™ A750 Graphics (DG2)

  • Disk Capacity: 6.8 TB (/root on separate SSD, /home on the mirror on 2 SATA SSDs)

Software Information:

  • Firmware Version: 3611

  • OS Name: Fedora Linux 44 (Workstation Edition)

  • OS Build: (null)

  • OS Type: 64-bit

  • GNOME Version: 50

  • Windowing System: Wayland

  • Kernel Version: Linux 7.1.8-200.fc44.x86_64

The problem is that the audio in my VM is choppy/laggy for MS Teams calls. To conquer this I have tried already:

  1. CPU core pinning

  2. Setting Pipewire as the backend for VM’s audio

  3. Passing my USB headset (JABRA EVOLVE 20) via SPICE and USB passthrough

  4. Many other advises from the internet, e.g., changing USB controller protocol or Audio device type, etc.

Things I haven’t tried yet are:

  1. Using Teams on the host for calls - I’d like to keep all stuff relevant to the job in the VM

  2. Using the Scream protocol to bridge audio between host and guest via network protocol. Seems to me as a complication, thus did not try yet.

How do you get low-latency audio in similar situations ? I’d appreciate if somebody could share a working recipe.

Thank you for your time.

ArtūrasB.

2

Audio buffer underruns due to latency issues typically cause artifacts described as pops, clicks and crackling rather than choppy or laggy. The issue may be either excessive single core CPU load or poor network performance.

Lack of hardware (GPU / codec) acceleration support may be causing excess CPU load.

Open task manager in the guest OS and make sure none of the cores are getting maxed out. Also check the guest’s network performance.

3

Thanks for the advice, I’ll check it. It’s just a bit hard to believe that if one of the 16 virtual CPUs gets loaded, it affects the audio that much…