PS C:> Get‐NetAdapterRss
Name : MGMT NIC
InterfaceDescription : Broadcom BCM 57800 NetXtreme II 1 GigE
(NDIS VBD Client) # 131
Enabled : True
NumberOfReceiveQueues : 4
Profile : NUMAStatic
BaseProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0 : 0
MaxProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0 : 30
MaxProcessors : 16
RssProcessorArray: [Group:Number/NUMA Distance]:
0 : 0 / 0 0 : 2 / 0 0 : 4 / 0 0 : 6 / 0 0 : 8 / 0 0 : 10 / 0 0 : 12 / 0 0 : 14 / 0
0 : 16 / 0 0 : 18 / 0 0 : 20 / 0 0 : 22 / 0 0 : 24 / 0 0 : 26 / 0 0 : 28 / 0 0 : 30 / 0
IndirectionTable: [Group:Number]:
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22 0 : 4 0 : 20 0 : 6 0 : 22
It’s possible to configure the processor cores to be used for an RSS adapter by
modifying the BaseProcessorNumber, MaxProcessorNumber, and MaxProcessors values
by using the Set-NetAdapterRss PowerShell cmdlet. This gives the administrator
more-granular control of the processor resources used to process network traffic. It’s
also possible to enable and disable RSS for specific network adapters by using Enable-
NetAdapterRss and Disable-NetAdapterRss.
RSS is a great technology, but it is disabled as soon as a network adapter is connected
to a virtual switch. VMQ and RSS are mutually exclusive: You do not get the benefit of
RSS for virtual network adapters connected to virtual machines. Therefore, if you have
a virtual switch connected to a 10 Gbps NIC, the throughput to a virtual machine is
only around 3 to 4 Gbps, the maximum amount a single processor core can process,
and this is what was possible with Windows Server 2012. This changes with Windows
Server 2012 R 2 and the introduction of virtual RSS, or vRSS.
vRSS enables the RSS mechanism to split incoming packets between multiple virtual
processors within the virtual machine. A virtual machine can now leverage the full
bandwidth available; for example, a virtual machine can now receive 10 Gbps over its
virtual NIC, because the processing is no longer bottlenecked to a single virtual