# FreeBSD 10.3 vm with ESXi 5.5 host - internal vmxnet3 or VmwareTools vmx3f0 adapter?



## Dmitry D (Jun 27, 2016)

Hello!

Which implementation of vmxnet3 adapter is better to use on FreeBSD 10.3 VM on ESXi 5.5 host?

Internal FreeBSD vmx(4) driver or vmx3f0 adapter from vmware-tools?

Thank you.
Best Regards,
Dmitry.


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## SirDice (Jun 27, 2016)

I would use the built-in vmx(4) driver (which is part of GENERIC) unless you run into issues.


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## robroy (Jun 28, 2016)

Dmitry, I second SirDice's recommendation to stick with the vmx(4) driver that's present by default in FreeBSD.

At my job, I use this driver with FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE amd64 in an ESX 5.5 (currently U3b) VM, with two VMXNET3 vNICs.  I've been using this every day for over a year, and I haven't noticed any problems with it.


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## Dmitry D (Jun 28, 2016)

SirDice said:


> I would use the built-in vmx(4) driver (which is part of GENERIC) unless you run into issues.





robroy said:


> Dmitry, I second SirDice's recommendation to stick with the vmx(4) driver that's present by default in FreeBSD.
> 
> At my job, I use this driver with FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE amd64 in an ESX 5.5 (currently U3b) VM, with two VMXNET3 vNICs.  I've been using this every day for over a year, and I haven't noticed any problems with it.



Thank you!


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## Donald Baud (Jul 12, 2016)

I also second the recomendations to use FreeBSD's vmx driver which has a better performance even with esxi6.

hint:
If you install the vmware-tools, it adds vmware's vmx3f driver which overrides FreeBSD's vmx driver.
You should comment out those lines like so:

/boot/loader.conf

```
#vmxnet3_load="YES"
#vmxnet_load="YES"
```


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