4 ms·

Configuring a usable Android emulator

54 points by kul 14y ago

hayksaakian 14y ago
Thank you, this is far more useful than the other confusingly titled article about android emulators
apo 14y ago
The ridiculously slow startup time of the default Android emulator makes app development excruciating. This article is the first one I'll be reading on getting back into Android development.
- swanson 14y ago
  Are you restarting the emulator often? You can just start it up once and then redeploy the app to the already running emulator...
- lnanek2 14y ago
  Make sure to enable snapshots when creating an emulator. It will still have the ridiculous startup the very first time, but after that startup is quick and shutdown is slow. Much in line with what the blog author is saying, this feature was added after the initial launch and isn't checked by default. Also make sure you aren't closing the emulator each time you finish running. Just leave it open in the background and running the app again later will deploy to the same instance as last time without any startup at all. Sorry if you know all this, you'd be surprised how many people don't at Android meetups and the like. :)
wvenable 14y ago
I just recently started playing around with Android development and searching for information on how to speed up the emulator. I never found this information. After following these steps I actually a have usable emulator; even the startup time is now more reasonable.
ttflee 14y ago
Still wonder why the emulator always eats up to 17% of cpu time on the Mac OS X host when the emulator is on idle.
- clumsysmurf 14y ago
  This happens to me all the time. Every version of the emulator from the time I started with android in 2009 to present. I NEVER leave it running on my machine when I retire for the night. Once or twice I woke up in the morning to see it somehow gobbling 100% of the CPU while idling, and the machine seemed close to overheating.
ck2 14y ago
The only real problem with using the x86 accelerator version of the emulator is that many apps that are ARM based won't run, like Firefox Mobile. The app store is surprisingly bare for popular apps when you are in x86 mode.
dirkdk 14y ago
yep, standard emulators are so bad I use my Nexus 7 to test apps. Even running unit tests
CookWithMe 14y ago
"Not compatible with Linux" :( Does anyone know whether this is planned for the near future?
bilalq 14y ago
Thank you so much for this. I honestly spent half this summer waiting on the emulator.

54 points by kul 14y ago

Thank you, this is far more useful than the other confusingly titled article about android emulators

apo 14y ago

The ridiculously slow startup time of the default Android emulator makes app development excruciating. This article is the first one I'll be reading on getting back into Android development.

swanson 14y ago
Are you restarting the emulator often? You can just start it up once and then redeploy the app to the already running emulator...
lnanek2 14y ago
Make sure to enable snapshots when creating an emulator. It will still have the ridiculous startup the very first time, but after that startup is quick and shutdown is slow. Much in line with what the blog author is saying, this feature was added after the initial launch and isn't checked by default. Also make sure you aren't closing the emulator each time you finish running. Just leave it open in the background and running the app again later will deploy to the same instance as last time without any startup at all. Sorry if you know all this, you'd be surprised how many people don't at Android meetups and the like. :)

wvenable 14y ago

I just recently started playing around with Android development and searching for information on how to speed up the emulator. I never found this information. After following these steps I actually a have usable emulator; even the startup time is now more reasonable.

ttflee 14y ago

Still wonder why the emulator always eats up to 17% of cpu time on the Mac OS X host when the emulator is on idle.

clumsysmurf 14y ago
This happens to me all the time. Every version of the emulator from the time I started with android in 2009 to present. I NEVER leave it running on my machine when I retire for the night. Once or twice I woke up in the morning to see it somehow gobbling 100% of the CPU while idling, and the machine seemed close to overheating.

ck2 14y ago

The only real problem with using the x86 accelerator version of the emulator is that many apps that are ARM based won't run, like Firefox Mobile. The app store is surprisingly bare for popular apps when you are in x86 mode.

dirkdk 14y ago

yep, standard emulators are so bad I use my Nexus 7 to test apps. Even running unit tests

CookWithMe 14y ago

"Not compatible with Linux" :( Does anyone know whether this is planned for the near future?

bilalq 14y ago

Thank you so much for this. I honestly spent half this summer waiting on the emulator.