iOS simulator is fast because XCode builds an X86 binary and because iPhone and OSX both run basically the same OS, there is no actual emulation happening, mostly just API mapping... It's running as a mostly OS-Native binary.
Unless you want to develop your apps in Android itself on your desktop on an ARM CPU, you should understand that there will be a performance penalty for emulating the an ARM CPU on x86. One way to make it faster is to build an Android x86 emulator and stop emulating operations, instead using the CPU natively. It seems as if there is progress in that area, even if it's not all from Google. On Jan 29, 11:57 am, Marc Petit-Huguenin <petit...@gmail.com> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On 01/29/2011 10:55 AM, Leigh McRae wrote: > > > It's easy to say that until you have actually written an OpenGL game for > > Android. Running at seconds per frame instead of frames per second > > means you can ONLY test on real hardware. On real hardware my game > > (Tank Recon 3D) takes over 5 minutes to load in the debugger (30 seconds > > on BlackBerry). Even working with these limitations you also have to > > develop for the different OS versions and screen sizes. > > > Now I understand what you're saying with the emulation but this blanket > > answer is getting kind of old. Stop giving the 'You can't get there > > from here' answer and try and figure something out. The BlackBerry > > emulators route the OpenGL calls to the desktop PC and allow you to > > choose the level of acceleration. Maybe this is something that can be > > looked into. Sure I know you're not getting a 1:1 mapping but it does > > allows you to develop. How about making a new driver backed by the > > desktop GPU and give some way to select it? > > And what about you write and contribute this driver to the code base? There > was > something I disliked in the phone emulator, I fixed it for myself, and then > submitted it in Gerrit and the patch was accepted, all in less than two months > and it is now part of Gingerbread. > > Complaining about missing features on an open source project is ridiculous. > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 1/29/2011 12:53 PM, Dianne Hackborn wrote: > >> On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 1:26 AM, Miguel Morales > >> <therevolti...@gmail.com <mailto:therevolti...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > >> Not to mention that testing OpenGL games is impossible. The only way > >> to test on devices is users, otherwise it's just a guessing and > >> hoping > >> for the best. > >> In any case, I don't care WHY the emulator is so slow. Hopefully > >> they'll make it fast in the near future, the iPhone emulator is much > >> better. > > >> At the end of the day, you absolutely need to test and run on a > >> device, especially for doing things like OpenGL games. An emulator or > >> simulator on desktop hardware is never going to give you a good idea > >> of how your app performs on real hardware. > > >> This isn't an excuse for the emulator being slow (we really would like > >> to improve it, this is just a fairly challenging problem), but no > >> matter what is done it can never be a replacement for running on a > >> real device. > > >> -- > >> Dianne Hackborn > >> Android framework engineer > >> hack...@android.com <mailto:hack...@android.com> > > >> Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time > >> to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All > >> such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others > >> can see and answer them. > > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > >> Groups "Android Developers" group. > >> To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com > >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > >> android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > >> For more options, visit this group at > >>http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en > > - -- > Marc Petit-Huguenin > Personal email: m...@petit-huguenin.org > Professional email: petit...@acm.org > Blog:http://blog.marc.petit-huguenin.org > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) > > iEYEARECAAYFAk1EcS8ACgkQ9RoMZyVa61es6wCeMZHA1Lu5GrzI4qNBIpW/vMQX > 6NIAn3azdKrV6q6BAurX2sDMwJsEkfMp > =tUSL > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
