Vive Pro USB C Passthrough?

[epsilon748]

Does the USB C port on the Vive support full passthrough like I was plugging in to a USB port anywhere on the tower? I want to get a 1 to 3 usb c OTG cable to power both my Vive 'n' chill and a USB DAC to so I can swap out the headphones. The Creative Sound Blaster 3 Play! doesn't require drivers and I think should just work, but the the Sound BlasterX G1 with software 7.1 audio does require drivers or it falls back to stereo.

 

Is the same true with the wireless module installed?

[HackPerception]

, Yes, the USB-C port on the HMD acts as a full port. I'm not 100% sure about OTG as a true OTG adapter has a slightly different pin layout that a standard device which reports back to the system that it's a host device. It should work but I don't have an OTG onhand to confirm. 

 

Note that for audio, we're officially recommending the following USB-C -> 3.5mm adapter; I can't speak for your specific adapter - typically things with their own DAC add an additional layer of complexity (i.e. a failure point). I think for the most part, trying to digitally emulate a 7 channel surround setup may actually dramatically reduce your spatial audio profile as both Unity and Unreal are preforming VR specific binaural audio calculations. The SteamVR/OpenVR component of Unity/Unreal isn't expecting a 7 channel output - that doesn't make sense from and SDK or HMD standpoint. 

 

Wireless does support full USB and camera passthrough. That said, in the real world, we're seeing that the level of support can definitely vary based on how your motherboard is wired up as well as your CPU strength. 

[epsilon748]

Thanks for the response, I'm actually leaning towards the Dragonfly Black or Red now after reading reviews since I'm pairing it with either my expensive Sennheiser HD800 or Campfire Audio Lyra II's. It does away with software gimmicks and should just work sans drivers.

 

The reason I need this, since I forgot to mention is that I've got a Vive 'n' chill running off the USB C already and need it split out into two usb A ports. A USB A DAC and the cooler should theoretically work together if the usb audio passthrough works.

 

I haven't had any CPU issues, but I'm also throwing a Threadripper 1950x at this. 

[HackPerception]

, regardless of the hardware implementation, the results you'll see are entirely bottlenecked by how the audio is being handled at the engine level and may vary from title to tile based on their SDK support. For the most part, people are using HRTF-based binaural rendering - changing the audio output device doesn't mean that the SDK driving the engine will be able to render appropriately and in some cases, you'll see a degradation in spatial resolution as most VR pipelines are specifically driving binaural.

 

If you're on an AMD Threadripper, I would hold off on ordering wireless as some users are reporting instabilities which we're currently investigating alongside our launch partners.