Google Android Emulator vs. Microsoft Emulator for Mobile platforms

[SergeyKostrov]

I compared memoryusage and performance of Google Androidand Microsoft Emulators. Here are some numbers:

Android Emulator x86 system image - Memory allocated: 1.06GB
Android Emulator ARM system image - Memory allocated: 1.10GB
Microsoft Emulator for Pocket PC ARM - Memory allocated: 0.21GB ( 213MB )
Microsoft Emulator for Smartphone ARM - Memory allocated: 0.21GB ( 213MB )
Microsoft Emulator for Windows Mobile ARM - Memory allocated: 0.34GB ( 339MB )

Take into account that three (!) Microsoft Emulators for different platformsused less (!)memory:

( 0.21GB + 0.21GB + 0.34GB = 0.76GB ) < ( 1.06GB or 1.10GB )

then one Android Emulator.

Microsoft Emulators are significantly faster (!) than GoogleAndroid Emulator.

What is wrong with GoogleAndroid Emulator?

I think there are design and implementationissues and Google Software Developers over complicated
internals of the Android Emulator. Android Emulator system images are ~10x bigger than Microsoft system
images for ARM CPUs

Does it mean that Android OS and Emulator codes are less optimized, or not optimized at all?

If Google Software Developers don'toptimize codesit ispossible that in a couple of years Android OS,
designed for Mobile Devices in the first place, will be compared in size with Windows XP or even Windows 7
operating systems for Desktop computers and will have more performance problems.

Google admitted that there are performance problems with Android Emulator however an attempt to fix
these problems with GPUs is not a right solution and the source codes should be optimized and all "junk codes" deleted.

Here three screenshots of Windows Task Manager:

[SergeyKostrov]

Android Emulator with x86 system image:

[SergeyKostrov]

Android Emulator withARM system image:

[SergeyKostrov]

Microsoft Emulators:

[SergeyKostrov]

Quoting Sergey Kostrov

...
Microsoft Emulators are significantly faster (!) than GoogleAndroid Emulator.
...

They also alow to map some host-computer ports, like COM1, COM2, etc, to the emulated device. It means,
that some hardware could be controlled if it supports serial communications. I'll provide more technical details later.

[SergeyKostrov]

Quoting Sergey Kostrov

...They also alow to map some host-computer ports, like COM1, COM2, etc, to the emulated device. It means,
that some hardware could be controlled if it supports serial communications. I'll provide more technical details later.

Please take a look at a screenshot:

Three COM ports could be mapped to the emulator:

COM1 - real serial port
CNCA0 - virtual serial port A0
CNCB0 - virtual serial port B0

[SergeyKostrov]

Quoting Sergey Kostrov

...Google admitted that there are performance problems with Android Emulator however an attempt to fix
these problems with GPUs...

Please take a look at:

Article: "A Faster Emulator with Better Hardware Support"

http://android-developers.blogspot.ca/2012/04/faster-emulator-with-better-hardware.html

[SergeyKostrov]

Quoting Sergey Kostrov

Quoting Sergey Kostrov

...
Microsoft Emulators are significantly faster (!) than GoogleAndroid Emulator.
...

They also alow to map some host-computer ports, like COM1, COM2, etc, to the emulated device. It means,
that some hardware could be controlled if it supports serial communications. I'll provide more technical details later.

This is a follow up: Just discovered a command line option '-gps ' of the Android Emulator.

[Gheorghe_T_]

maybe faster, but not more stable than android ..

[SergeyKostrov]

>>...maybe faster, but not more stable than android... >>... Could you give an example of instability of Microsoft Emulators?

[Dũng_L_]

My fear is that it runs slow

[SergeyKostrov]

>>...My fear is that it runs slow . Do you mean Android Emulator or Microsoft Emulator? Sorry, you didn't express your concern clearly.

[shin]

im using android emulator and i can see it, but i still dont know why the memory usage is so big compaerd with nicrosoft emulator for mobile devices.

[SergeyKostrov]

>>...i still dont know why the memory usage is so big compared with Microsoft emulator for mobile devices... . Please take a look at a first post of the thread: '...there are design and implementation issues and Google Software Developers over complicated internals of the Android Emulator. Android Emulator system images are ~10x bigger than Microsoft system images for ARM CPUs.'

[Mauricio_Alegretti]

Matter of fact, even the Windows Phone 7 emulator (or VM, to be more accurate) that have theoretically to emulate a better hardware, has a much better performance than the Android emulator. Anxiously waiting for the Google optimizations over the emulator...

[SergeyKostrov]

>>...Anxiously waiting for the Google optimizations over the emulator... . It would be a very good step forward. However, does it make sense for the Google? Android devices are so cheap nowdays and developers could have several of them on the table. I was recently told that Android v4.1 is faster then Android v4.0. Is that true? Could somebody share an experience?

[SergeyKostrov]

>>...Windows Phone 7 emulator (or VM, to be more accurate) that have theoretically to emulate a better hardware, has a much >>better performance than the Android emulator... . Here is a question: How long does it take to load / initialize MS Emulator for a Windows Mobile Platform? . Answer: A couple of seconds and it depends on a list of DLLs a Visual Studio should upload to a virtual device and on the speed of your system.

[Bernard]

>>>Android Emulator withARM system image:>>> You should also take into account the memory beign eaten up by various emulated hardware devices and its PDO's and memory-mapped I/O of emulated devices.

[JLuna5]

Hi, for my concept the android emulator is better, if is free is better, not be free, if not the community developer is bigger