3) Setting Receive Buffers (Receive Descriptors) The sets the number of buffers used by the Ethernet driver when copying data to the protocol memory. The NIC itself does not feature any buffer memory, but the received data packets need to be buffered in order to compensate CPU load changes caused by the operating system. Therefore, buffers are allocated in the PC’s RAM. In general, it is recommended to allocate as many receive buffers as possible to reduce the risk of packet resends. a. This value is often directly in the Advance Parameter list. Other times, this value is under Performance Options. Set this value to the maximum, typically 2048.
4) Setting Interrupt Moderation Interrupt Moderation is generally set to Adaptive by default to allow interrupt rates to be set dynamically depending on traffic type and network usage. If your system is experiencing dropped packets, this value should either be set to Minimal to allow the CPU to handle the packets, or to Extreme to minimize CPU usage. The user will have to experiment with this value because it is PC architecture dependent. a. This value is often directly in the Advance Parameter list. Other times, this value is under Performance Options. It is typically set to adaptive. You can leave it at adaptive, or set it to extreme, or minimal when tuning system performance.
Using Sentech STC-M Cameras with AutoVISION and Visionscape Page 9 of 32 When a packet arrives, the adapter generates an interrupt that allows the driver (CPU) to handle the packet. At greater link speeds, more interrupts are created and CPU usage increases which can result in poorer system performance. When you enable Interrupt Moderation, the interrup rate is lower resulting in better CPU performance. However, this lower CPU usage can also result in dropped packets.