Using a threshold value to control mid-interrupt polling

In one embodiment, a method is provided. The method of this embodiment provides performing packet processing on a packet, and placing the packet in a placement queue; if no read buffer is available, determining if the size of the placement queue exceeds a threshold polling value; and if the size of the placement queue exceeds the threshold polling value: if there are one or more pending DMM (data movement module) requests, polling a DMM to determine if the DMM has completed the one or more pending DMM requests for data associated with an application; and if the DMM has completed the one or more pending DMM requests, then sending a completion notification to the application to receive the data.