Disclosed are, inter alia, methods, apparatus, computer-readable media, mechanisms used in one embodiment configured for, and means for, determining packet forwarding information for packets sent from a protocol offload engine in a packet switching device. The protocol offload engine performs the protocol processing for a protocol application (e.g., BGP) running on a separate control plane processing system, and generates packets to be sent to external devices. The protocol offload engine sends these packets to one of the line cards without using the routing information lookup facility of the control plane processing system, thereby, freeing the control plane processing system to use those processing cycles to perform other tasks.