- This topic has 16 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated Oct 25, 2020 6:21pm by
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Is there a way to stop vorpx from changing my audio devices? I’ve got the options to use the hmd’s audio turned off in both SteamVR and Oculus settings, but my audio keeps getting reset. If I pull up a troubleshooting log, I see INF: vorpControl: Audio device reset to: VX32L HDTV10A (2- NVIDIA High Definition Audio). That’s not my default device – my bluetooth headphones are. Not sure why it would be switching anything in the first place – my hmd audio is disabled – I intentionally did so to limit the number of devices to chose from. But of the 2 active devices left, it keeps getting reset to the non-default.
Uncheck the “Use built in audio device” option in the config app and restart vorpX afterwards.
With this option turned on vorpX reads the default playback device (i.e. the device that Windows returns as default) on launch, then switches to the headset audio while in game and back to default after exiting a game.
I’ve got “Use built in audio device” unchecked for both SteamVR and Oculus in the vorpx config. It remaps anyway when the game is shutdown, and I have to manually change it back again. Windows 10 may be reporting the wrong default – it can’t seem to distinguish between default audio device and default communication device – but vorpx shouldn’t be changing it at all with those checkboxes unchecked, if I understand correctly.
I’ve got it disabled there too. The only clue I have is the vorpx troubleshooting log, which says it remapped the audio, despite the vorpx config options.
It’s annoying, but whatever. I’m convinced the app is buggy in that regard but I can live with it.
I’ll take a look at it. There is a check for the aforementioned setting whenever any related function is called. Unlikely that there is something wrong with that all of a sudden, but nothing is impossible, of course.
Edit:
I just realized that there is an additional failsafe mechanism that I completely forgot about in case a game crashes while the audio device was changed. The control app actually writes the default device to a temp file on launch and always restores the audio device saved to this file on exit.
The question is why your default device as reported by Windows apparently isn’t the one you consider the default. Are you sure that vorpX doesn’t reset the device to the one you had selected when you started vorpX? That would essentially mean the according Windows API returns nonsense for your setup.
If I go to troubleshooting in the vorpx config app and set the default audio device I do not run into problems. If I use control panel to set the default I wind up with my audio being remapped.
Perhaps it’s a timing issue relative to whether I set the default before or after I started vorpx, or perhaps the geniuses at Microsoft decided that if there’s a blip in the bluetooth device to reset it so as to protect me from my own ignorance.
I don’t want vorpx messing with my audio, ever, under any circumstances. I’ve already disabled the Oculus virtual sound manager, the Virtual Desktop sound device, the BigScreen sound device, set SteamVR not to jack with it, have my onboard audio disabled in my bios, and I’m still getting it remapped.
The workaround is to use use the vorpx config app to set the default so there’s no confusion. I forget to do that sometimes simply because it’s a step I shouldn’t have to take.
The thing is, it isn’t supposed to ‘mess’ with it, quite the opposite actually. There is a dedicated Windows API for reading and setting the default playback device. If after exiting vorpX your playback device is something else than before starting it, then said API returned some bogus value on your machine for whatever reason. You might want to look into that for a real solution.
I’ll disable the failsafe mechanism too when the ‘Use built in audio device’ option is unchecked. That should “solve” your issue at least as far as vorpX is concerned.
Thank you. I know that Windows 10 is switching my default audio when I go to far away from my computer or the signal is lost for some reason, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all other than Microsoft’s general hatred of bluetooth devices. It would be nice if it switched it back but when possible, but so far that hasn’t happened. I’ve already installed a tray app that gives me a hotkey to switch it back, but that only works with about half the games I play, and sometimes my audio gets switched in-game for no apparent reason. I was to the point where I couldn’t figure out who was switching it and why, which led me to looking at vorpx troubleshooting logs.
I would suggest that you consider putting an audio device selector into vorpx to eliminate the doubt, but everyone and his/her mother wants to control my audio already, so I’ll not go there. As far as the error handling in vorpx, I understand why it’s needed if your audio is mapped to an hmd, but the sound quality of my Rift is a joke, which is why I got the bluetooth headphones in the first place.
I understand what you want to do and it should work perfectly fine already. That’s what the ‘Use built in audio device’ option is for and I don’t really recall any issue with that in seven years TBH.
With ‘Use built in audio device’ disabled vorpX ONLY does its failsafe reset on exit, i.e. when you close vorpControl, it sets the device to the one that it evaluated as active on start. So if your audio device after exiting vorpControl is different than before starting it, apparently the Windows API for reading the current playback device returns nonsense on your machine for whatever strange reason.
Anyway, if you still encounter any audio switching at all while the ‘Use built in audio device’ is unchecked after the next update, it definitely wasn’t vorpX that did it.
This is not likely to be an issue for me now that I understand that vorpx stores the default audio device on startup and returns it to that default if an error occurs. The problem is that Windows 10 makes your default a moving target and I was expecting vorpx to follow that target. Live and learn.
That’s the point of the failsafe mechanism. If the device gets changed while vorpX is running, e.g. by SteamVR, and then some crash occurs that prevents SteamVR from resetting it, vorpX does that on exit.
However I have now disabled the entire audio switching system for SteamVR. In the future it only will be used in native Oculus mode, which doesn’t have anything comparable on its own, and only with ‘Use built in audio device audio’ set to on, so nothing will get in your way anymore. Typical case of one-can’t-do-it-right-for-everyone I guess.
Be aware though that it might get re-enabled for SteamVR too any time should the decision lead to problems with users being stuck on their headset audio.
I avoid using SteamVR whenever possible so whatever you need to do there isn’t going to bother me. Now if I could just make the Oculus runtime stop popping up a message that my headset has no audio…
You disabled the headset audio in the device manager, right? That’s something you would have to discuss with Oculus, can’t really help with that.
As far as vorpX is concerned there is no need to do that though. With vorpX all you have to do to use any audio device of your choice is unticking ‘Use built-in audio device’ in the config app.
There is actually a switch in the Oculus app to select whether it uses the headset for audio or uses Windows system settings. I don’t know what impact this has on vorpx, if any at all, but in the early days of owning my Rift I found the switch to be unreliable and actually had the sound coming both through the headset and to my default audio device at times, which is why I disabled the Oculus Audio Manager. It may have been fixed in a subsequent software update or may have been a case of SteamVR trying to set the audio to something other than what the Rift wanted. I viewed it as just another of many pieces of software fighting for control of audio devices.
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