NDIS 6

[Aliberti Emanuele]

NDIS 6 to come in Longhorn.
MS again changes how network is implemented in NT 5.1.

http://www.ndis.com/news/longhornnetdevnews.htm

[Filip Navara]

Aliberti Emanuele wrote:

>   NDIS 6 to come in Longhorn.
>  MS again changes how network is implemented in NT 5.1.
>
>  http://www.ndis.com/news/longhornnetdevnews.htm 
I have read the WHDC papers about NDIS 6 and in fact the major changes are
- Minor extensions to miniport interface (as in every NDIS version 
before). This includes some added *Ex functions and now 
NdisMRegisterMiniportDriver function that overcomes 
NdisMInitializeWrapper+NdisMRegisterMiniport combo.
- Native support for IEEE 802.11a/b.
- Net buffers (a technology to manage packet pools used by miniports and 
IM drivers).

Regards,
Filip

[Aliberti Emanuele]

Filip Navara wrote:

>   I have read the WHDC papers about NDIS 6 and in fact
> the major changes 
>  are
>  - Minor extensions to miniport interface (as in every NDIS version 
>  before). This includes some added *Ex functions and now 
>  NdisMRegisterMiniportDriver function that overcomes 
>  NdisMInitializeWrapper+NdisMRegisterMiniport combo.
>  - Native support for IEEE 802.11a/b.
>  - Net buffers (a technology to manage packet pools used by miniports 
>  and IM drivers). 
They say using NDIS 5 drivers will be possible, but at the cost of minor 
performance.
Does it mean those net buffers can not be used by NDIS 5 drivers?

Emanuele

[Filip Navara]

Aliberti Emanuele wrote:

>   Filip Navara wrote:
>
> >   I have read the WHDC papers about NDIS 6 and in
> > fact the major 
> >  changes are
> >  - Minor extensions to miniport interface (as in every NDIS version 
> >  before). This includes some added *Ex functions and now 
> >  NdisMRegisterMiniportDriver function that overcomes 
> >  NdisMInitializeWrapper+NdisMRegisterMiniport combo.
> >  - Native support for IEEE 802.11a/b.
> >  - Net buffers (a technology to manage packet pools used by miniports 
> >  and IM drivers). 
>  
I forgot to metion:
- Lightwight filters - a replacement for NDIS IM drivers (this might be 
backported to NDIS 5.1, but I haven't heard any official info about it.)
- New Scatter/Gather DMA API (not that interesting, but worth mentioning)

>   They say using NDIS 5 drivers will be possible, but at
> the cost of 
>  minor performance. 
I'm a bit sceptic about the MS performance claims. A well-written 
optimized NDIS 5 driver would propably perform just as good as a similar 
NDIS 6 miniport driver. It's just easier to use the net buffers than 
doing all the stuff in miniports.

>   Does it mean those net buffers can not be used by NDIS
> 5 drivers? 
The net buffers API are currently available only on NDIS 6 and most 
propably will not be backported.

Regards,
Filip