Android emulator: how do I know if hardware virtualization is being used?

Question

Starting with the Android SDK Tools rev 17, the Android emulator supports the use of hardware virtualization (Intel VT, VT-x, vmx and AMD-V, SVM), which should speed up x86-based emulator images: http://developer.android.com/ guide / developing / devices / emulator.html # accel-vm

I installed all the necessary components:

• New SDK Tools
• Hardware accelerator Execerated Execution Manager (and installed it by running IntelHaxm.exe )
• Intel Atom x86 system image (available as API 10 and API 15 image)

Then I created a new AVD using this image, but I couldn’t “feel” any difference in speed.

So my question is: How do I know if the hardware virtualization feature is being used?

And if not, what needs to be done to use it?

I know that it has BIOS enabled, because I can run Windows 64-bit virtual machines in VirtualBox. In addition, I tested it using the Microsoft® Hardware-Assisted Tool for Virtualization .

Answer 1

At boot time, you should see this line:

[2012-03-26 14:06:22 - Emulator] HAX works and the emulator works in fast virt mode

Answer 2

After moving this guide to OS X Lion, I see the following in the console when the emulator starts:

./emulator-x86 -avd Test3 HAX is working and emulator runs in fast virt mode 

Answer 3

Was there the same problem on Windows 7 32bit with an Intel Q6600 processor and a rather outdated Asus P5E-VM SE motherboard. The motherboard did not even have the ability to virtualize, although the Intel tool: http://www.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/sb/CS-014921.htm that VT technology is enabled. The fault was that data execution prevention was enabled only for Windows services, I turned it on for all programs and after restarting my computer I received this message in the Eclipse Android console: HAX works and the emulator works in fast virt mode

DEP setup: On the Windows panel / Control Panel / System and Security / System / Advanced system settings / Advanced tab / Data Execution Performance tab

I got the idea to check this here: https://developer.tizen.org/sdk/haxm Although only standard images are used (not Tizen ones).

I must say that downloading the emulator in virtualization mode is not as impressive as on the Intel promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9IeJ777zw But the application downloads (my pretty big ~ 5 MB), and overall responsiveness The emulator is pretty significant. This is not to say that it works like a native computer (sometimes it has a visible lag), but again it is noticeably faster. It eats a lot of memory (I have 4 GB, only 14 MB for free when the emulator will work).