Android Simulator - very slow

Question

I would like to use an Android SDK Simulator to debug a website but the time that it's loading is not acceptable. It's like 5 minutes. I can refresh a website 100 times on Apple XCode Simulator (and on actual iPhone as well) during Android SDK loading time.

Furthermore, all the icons inside lag. It's completely not usable.

So, I come to conclusion that it shouldn't be like that but I have no idea what I'm doing wrong? I just installed it, I installed all the newest components, I'm on i7, 8GB RAM computer and it lags from the very beginning. I can't even type a website address without having to wait 60 seconds - not to mention, debug anything. Can anyone shed some light on that?

Answer 1

You're emulating a Linux OS, and on top of that it's running a Java Virtual Machine, and on top of that, it's running the android application, which is finally running your application. All of these steps are highly memory intense, and therefore, you'll experience slow running times of your application because of it. As suggested in the comments, the fastest way to debug the application is with an Android device itself. When testing times, it's far better to do so on an actual Android device than off of a separate machine, purely due to the amount of emulation that it does which will slow down execution.

Answer 2

Don't use the ARM emulator. Try the Intel x86 emulator for a much faster emulator. It's included in the Android 4.0.3 SDK.

Answer 3

I've found another way to make the emulator work much better, although I'm using windows so not sure if it will work in the same way.

If you go into the AVD Manager (where you manage your android virtual devices) and edit the one that has the slow problem. Near the bottom there is an option to use host GPU. Tick this option and makes a vast improvement on the speed of the emulator.

I found the emulator pretty unusable until I tried this