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On my system, i am using eclipse ganymede version along the Android SDK and ADT plugin installed. I have created an android AVD (target android 1.5) with 512MB of memory. Its quite frustrating to see the slow boot up of it. It takes around 4-5 mins to complete its boot-up. Is there any way or tweak to speed up this boot up process.

PC config:
P4 2.4 Ghz with 1 GB ram.

Amit
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    See for example http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1554099/slow-android-emulator (which also includes a few hints about improving [sliglhtly] the boot time, in addition to just confirming that everybody is waiting....) – mjv Mar 05 '10 at 05:22
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    Minimize the emulator during boot. Makes a huge difference on my system. – Dan Roberts Nov 04 '11 at 19:56
  • Try using the Android Studio on Ubuntu. There is a huge difference in speed. – CyprUS Feb 25 '16 at 16:14

6 Answers6

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You can use the -no-boot-anim command line option which speeds up the boot process by not showing the boot animation while the emulator starts up. It makes an noticeable difference on my system reducing start up time from around 55 seconds to nearer 45 seconds. (In case you're interested this is on a laptop with a Mobile Core 2 Duo L9400 and 3GB of RAM.)

Use a command line like this to start the emulator:

emulator -no-boot-anim @YourAvdName

where YourAvdName is the name of the Android Virtual Device (AVD) image that you want to start.

David Webb
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  • doing this way... i think it just don't display that animation... Somehow on my system... doing it this way was taking more time.... that might be because.. that i had just closed the already running avd to do this way.... – Amit Mar 05 '10 at 09:46
  • Is there any way to set this in Eclipse or is it command line only? – Scott Marlowe Mar 05 '10 at 12:56
  • @scottmarlowe - I'm not aware of a way to set this option in Eclipse. – David Webb Mar 05 '10 at 13:09
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    @scottmarlowe You can set it in run configuration. It's under the "Target" tab->Additional Emulator Command Line Options. source: android-developers mailing list – Chris Apr 20 '10 at 02:17
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There is now way of to speed up the boot process. This is the downside of having a real emulator not just a simulator like the Iphone kit offers.

You don't have to quit the emulator after a test run. Just start the emulator at the beginning of your work and close it after you are finished. If you want to test something very quick I often find it easier to just connect my actual device and run my app on the real device, without waiting for the emulator to start up.

Janusz
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  • I am already doing this way only... but i was wondering if bootup time could be reduced... Also the interface interaction is also quite slow.... i hope we soon get a better solution... – Amit Mar 05 '10 at 09:43
  • The interface interaction should be as slow as the real device. I think this is a pro for the emulator. While testing apps on the Iphone simulator you won't get a feeling for the lag etc the real device introduces. If somebody only tests on the 3Gs and the simulator the app is terrible to use on older Iphones. Therefor having a real emulator that shows a little bit how the app behaves on the phone is definitely a good thing. – Janusz Mar 05 '10 at 11:18
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There's no real way to cut the time down significantly, and it performs so poorly as a tablet device, it's barely usable. Bottom line, you need a real device to produce production apps. It's good for learning though.

The "emulator" is widely known for being a simulator. It does not:

  • come with device roms or known emulation for real world devices
  • off phone or SMS support
  • have the ability to open listening sockets for incoming requests

etc etc. It is not an emulator like mame. It's a simulator like the iPhone/iPad simulator.

Leif Ashley
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i started off with the default settings on the AVD manager to create a new AVD and it started up kind of ok, about 1-2 mins. later i deleted that and created a new AVD with 8GB internal memory (like the real device i'm using) and startup didn't! i waited 30 mins but still nothing

so i reverted to the default memory (512MB) and it seems to start ok

but i also noticed, its a bad idea to unclick the hardware buttons options, that causes it to load slow too

steveh
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install virtualbox and use androVM

much better than the emulator

Gareth Thomas
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The option that I select so far is to buy a cheap mobile from Kogan.com and use this is your app tester.

Otherwise you can also go and install Genymotion, which is definitely a ++ tool over AVD through Android Studio.

It is fast as well. However, keep in mind that there are many features that will be missing such as google play services. Thus, it is advisable that you buy a device. With Android supported mobile, you could basically do everything and simulate every events such as swipe shake etc...

codebased
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