AVD very slow on Android 4.0

Question

I'm trying to start AVD with Android 4.0 on WXGA mode (720 or 800) [for Tablets] but its very slow First it was crashing when i started the device Then i un-installed the AVD and SDK and reinstalled it and now it takes a lot of time to start and very slow on response

It's working fine for Android 2.x and 3.x but not for 4.0

I tried increasing RAM size also but it didn't worked (with snap shot or without snapshot)

Answer 1

The issue is screen size. Tablet-sized emulators for Android 3.x or 4.x presently use a LOT of CPU power.

Some of that is the home screen itself, so replacing the home screen with a simpler implementation can help. I use Zeam Launcher for this, in part because you can legally get the APK outside of the Android Market.

Beyond that, you need a development machine with a powerful CPU. I switched from a dual-core 2.5GHz machine to a Core i7 2.7GHz machine for that reason. The reason wasn't the 2.5 -> 2.7 jump, but the fact that the Core i7 supports Turbo Boost. The Android emulator only uses a single CPU core; TurboBoost effectively combines multiple cores to create a faster "Supercore" (cape optional). My Core i7 will TurboBoost to 3.4GHz, and 2.5 -> 3.4GHz, coupled with the simpler home screen and setting Device RAM to 1024 in the AVD, has gotten the emulator to the point where I can deliver training with it.