From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 3 07:03:17 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9219F16A4CE for ; Wed, 3 Mar 2004 07:03:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5375B43D54 for ; Wed, 3 Mar 2004 07:03:17 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gallatin@cs.duke.edu) Received: from grasshopper.cs.duke.edu (grasshopper.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.30]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i23F3GF6029033 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 3 Mar 2004 10:03:16 -0500 (EST) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by grasshopper.cs.duke.edu (8.12.9p2/8.12.9/Submit) id i23F3BnI080436; Wed, 3 Mar 2004 10:03:11 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from gallatin) From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <16453.62383.59435.72390@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 10:03:11 -0500 (EST) To: Don Bowman In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under 21.1 (patch 12) "Channel Islands" XEmacs Lucid cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: RE: em0, polling performance, P4 2.8ghz FSB 800mhz X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 15:03:17 -0000 Don Bowman writes: > I'm not sure what affect on fxp. fxp is inherently limited > by something internal to it, which prevents achieving > high packet rates. bge is the best chip, but doesn't > have the best bsd support. > Just curious - why is bge the best chip? Is it because it exports a really nice API (separate recv ring for small messages), or is the chip inherently faster, regardless of its API? I'm trying to design a new ethernet API for a firmware-based nic, and I'm trying to convince a colleague that having separate receive rings for small and large frames is a really good thing. Thanks, Drew