Emulator Release Notes

The Android Emulator is a component for the Android SDK. It is included with Android Studio. Revisions of the emulator prior to 25.3.0 were distributed as part of the Android SDK Tools.

The sections below provide notes about successive releases of the Android Emulator, as denoted by revision number. To ensure you have the latest version, check the SDK Manager for updates. For Android Emulator revisions prior to 25.3.0, see the Android SDK Tools Release Notes.

Revision 26.1.2 (July 2017)

This release includes new features and performance improvements.

• Added the ability to define a custom HTTP proxy configuration in the extended controls (click More , and then click Settings and Proxy). By default, the emulator uses the Android Studio HTTP proxy settings, but this screen allows you to define a manual proxy configuration.

  

• Added VNC support for guest mode GPU so emulator can be remotely viewed and controlled. For example, you can launch the emulator and let VNC listen to port 5901 as follows:

  1. Execute: emulator -gpu guest -avd avd_name -no-window -qemu -vnc :1
  2. Open a VNC viewer, such as tightvnc viewer, to connect to port 5901.

     • To use Mac's built-in screen sharing client, a VNC password is required when launching the emulator. To set a password, use this command:

       emulator -gpu guest -avd avd_name -no-window -qemu -vnc :1,password -monitor stdio

       And then enter change vnc password into the console, and enter a password.

  Android O is not currently supported for VNC mode.

• Added a File a bug button in the extended controls Help screen (Click More , and then click Help and Emulator help). Clicking File a bug opens a dialog where you can see the bug report details such as the screenshot, the AVD configuration info, and a bug report log. You can then save the report for yourself or report emulator issues.

• Added gyroscope sensor to emulator and virtual sensors panel. This requires a system image with gyroscope support to work (currently API level 24 and 25).
• Added host-preferred DNS to Qemu DNS list on Windows, when multiple virtual network interfaces on the host introduce multiple DNS addresses which are not functional for the emulator.
• Added experimental macOS Hypervisor.Framework support for 32-bit x86 images on macOS 10.10+ through server flags, which should improve boot time and performance.
  • If you experience problems with it, add the line HVF = off in ~/.android/advancedFeatures.ini.
• OpenGL ES 3.x is now enabled by default for system images and host GPUs that support OpenGL ES 3. Currently, only Android O (API level 26) and Windows/Linux hosts support OpenGL ES 3.
  • If you experience problems with OpenGL ES 3, add the line GLESDynamicVersion = off in ~/.android/advancedFeatures.ini.
• Emulator now uses offscreen OpenGL FBOs for all rendering except final display image posting, which should help with color consistency issues across platforms.
• After collecting data on sudden emulator slowdown issues, we have determined that the problem may have to do with some interaction between older Intel OpenGL drivers and Windows updates. As such, users with Intel HD 4000, 3000, 2000 (and related GPUs) now have rendering set by default to either a D3D renderer (ANGLE) or Swiftshader (software renderer).

Revision 26.0.0 (March 2017)

This release is compatible with API level 26. It also includes a number of performance improvements and bug fixes.

Dependencies

• Android SDK Platform-Tools revision 25.0.4 or later.

      <li>Android SDK Tools revision 26.0.0 or later.
      </li>
    </ul>

<h3>New features and bug fixes</h3>

• Compatible with API level 26.
• Fully GLES 2.0 compliant. Given a host GPU that has conformant desktop OpenGL drivers, the emulator now passes 100% of the Android CTS dEQP-GLES2 mustpass list. This has been released for API level 24 x86 images (revision 11 and higher) and will soon be included for all system images.
• Improved video playback performance. The emulator now stores all video color buffers in host/guest shared memory and performs necessary final YUV to RGB conversion in the GPU. 1080p30 should be well within reach of most systems now. This has been released for API level 24 x86 images (revision 11 and higher) and will soon be included for all system images.
• The emulator now correctly unregisters itself from the adb devices list on exit and closes open TCP ports on Linux machines.
• adb connections are now more reliable. A running emulator is detected faster and doesn’t go into “offline” or “unauthorized” status anymore.

Revision 25.3.0 (March 2017)

As of this release, the Android Emulator will be released separately from the SDK Tools. This release contains a variety of performance improvements, new features, and bug fixes.

Minor revision 25.3.1 (March 2017)

• Fixed a crash occurring on some GPU configurations by disabling GLAsyncSwap by default. This feature was added in 25.3.0 to improve frame timing and frames per second for games and video, but causes the emulator to fail on some unknown machine configurations. You can manually enable it by opening the android_sdk/emulator/lib/advancedFeatures.ini file and setting GLAsyncSwap = on.

<h3>Dependencies</h3>
    <ul>
      <li>Android SDK Platform-Tools revision 24 or later.
      </li>

      <li>Android SDK Tools revision 25.3.0.
      </li>
    </ul>

<h3>New features and bug fixes</h3>
    <ul>
      <li>Updated emulation engine to QEMU 2.7, including all recent
      bug fixes, improved performance, and new features.
      </li>

      <li>New IPv6 support.
      </li>

      <li>The emulator now uses SwiftShader as a pure software renderer on
      the host.
      </li>

      <li>Android Pipe performance improvements: Android Pipe, the main
      communication channel between the emulator and Android OS, is now an
      order of magnitude faster, has lower latency and offers better
      multi-threaded performance. This causes a number of performance
      improvements for the emulator, including:
        <ul>
          <li>Improved ADB push/pull speed.
          </li>

          <li>Better 3D acceleration support.
          </li>

          <li>Increased overall responsiveness of the emulator.
          </li>

          <li>Improved graphics performance.
          </li>
        </ul>
      </li>

      <li>The emulator now uses GPU-side buffers (glBindBuffers /
      glBufferData) when the guest requests them, decreasing CPU overhead
      in some apps.
      </li>

      <li>Improved audio support.
      </li>

      <li>Faster disk I/O: The emulator now uses separate threads to
      dispatch disk I/O, resulting in lower latency and better throughput
      (~1.5x sequential I/O speed, ~5x random access I/O speed). This also
      reduces the number of flushes to disk, resulting in much lower
      physical device load.
      </li>

      <li>The emulator now uses sparse files for disk boots on Windows
      machines, speeding up both first boot and "wipe-data" boots. When
      creating or resetting an AVD, the emulator now writes 100-200 MB of
      data to disk, instead of 2 GB or more.
      </li>

      <li>Various GUI enhancements:
        <ul>
          <li>The emulator now uses Qt 5.7.0, which includes bug fixes and
          performance improvements.
          </li>

          <li>UI initialization no longer attempts to load all emulator
          executables as Qt plugins, so it's dramatically shorter,
          especially on HDDs.
          </li>

          <li>UI interactions are now faster and smoother, including
          rotation, window resizing, and extended controls window loading
          and closing.
          </li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>