Is android SDK emulator by nature slow?

[Anton Sigurdsson]

I got a question about the android SDK emulator. Its rally slow and its a royal pain. When I test thing on my phone. Then its fast and smooth. Is my emulator wrongly set up or is it slow.

[Karthik Shiraly]

ARM emulation is terribly slow for me too, even with Snapshot or host GPU enabled. You can try enabling host GPU and see if it improves the speed.

That's why I use x86 images for emulator whenever feasible; it's much faster since there's no emulation involved (assuming your CPU is x86).

[Ulf Dittmer]

You could also try how fast running an actual Android build on a VM is: http://www.howtogeek.com/164570/how-to-install-android-in-virtualbox/ It might not be easy to get at logcat output, connect a debugger, etc. - I've never tried that.

[Christopher McKay]

Yes, I have noticed that when running an app on the Android SDK Emulator, the app runs really slow. where as when I run the app on a real device it runs really smooth. My only advice would be to run your app via a real android device.

[jacob wilson]

Its slow and does not have expected speed.

[Ulf Dittmer]

jacob wilson wrote:Its slow and does not live up to expectation.

Care to elaborate on that? What were your expectations?

[Christopher McKay]

jacob wilson wrote:Its slow and does not live up to expectation.

I also agree, but to run a an emulator of android which is ARM (correct me if I am using the wrong name) on an x64/x86 machine is hard enough. Also, you would have to have a lot of processing power dedicated to it, which wouldn't be cheap, or you could buy an actual android device for around the same price, and run your app on that.