Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH-RFC 13/13] virtio-net: connect to vhost net backend

[Paul Brook]

> > If we do have a software
> > fallback then the feature bit is just for backwards compatibility, and
> > should be enabled unconditionally (on current machine types).
>
> Software fallback might turn out to be slower than disabling the feature
> in the guest. For example, and extra pass over packet might cause extra CPU
> cache thrashing. In that case, it's not obvious whether enabling it
> unconditionally will turn out to be a good idea. But we'll have to have
> that code to be able to tell.

IMO once you accept that these things can change, consistency is more 
important than trying to guess what the "best" option may be.
Starting qemu on machine A and migrating to machine B should give the same 
guest environment as starting on machine B.

Paul