Boosting Android Emulator on Intel Chips

Good news for all Android Devs with Intel Processors (AMD not supported): you can speed up the laggy and buggy Android Emulator by nearly 10x! 

The following steps are tested on Mac OS, Windows might behave differently. Check the link below to get details for Windows.


  1. Update ADT, make sure to update Eclipse afterwards as well. Download the Intel x86 Image for your API Level.
  2. Download Intel HAXM
  3. Install HAXM. I decided to give it 2 / 16 GB RAM, however this might be overkill for Android.
  4. Reboot once HAXM has been installed.
  5. Create an Emulator Image, make sure to select Intel x86 as Architecture and to tick "Use Host-GPU". Keep in mind: Google Api's Emu Image is not configured for Intel (as of now) and will not show Intel's Atom image!
  6. Run. The Console Window should show HAXM support not. If it is showing failed: check for other running instances of Emulator (which consume HAXMs RAM) or increase total RAM for HAXM / decrease allowed RAM for Android.





Have a look at a more detailed instruction with explanations about QEMU & HAXM.

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