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Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:50:04 -0600 (CST)
From: Bryan Venteicher <bryanv@daemoninthecloset.org>
To: Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org>
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Subject: Re: VMware vmxnet2 driver
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----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ivan Voras" <ivoras@freebsd.org>
> To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org
> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 4:54:12 AM
> Subject: Re: VMware vmxnet2 driver
> 
> On 14/01/2013 07:42, Bryan Venteicher wrote:
> 
> > Any testing or performance data is welcome. For bulk TCP transfers,
> > if_vic
> > will tend to be faster than em (~1/2 a magnitude) due to TSO, but I
> > don't
> > think that warrants merging into HEAD yet.
> 
> Considering that from your description the current situation is:
> 
> 	* The driver isn't *worse* than either em or the "official"
>         VMWare driver (right?)
> 	* There is currently no vmxnet driver at all in HEAD
> 
> ... I don't think including the driver will harm anyone or anything,
> but it may make things a bit simpler when configuring VMs.
> 
> 

It is typically no better than em (*) - but better in certain cases with
TSO. The official driver didn't compile on HEAD and I couldn't bring
myself to spend the time to fix it. I'll look into it this weekend and do
an initial comparison.

A vmxnet3 driver would be far more useful to have in the tree.

* I'm running ESXi nested in VMware Fusion but I don't think that would
explain the discrepancy.