Google releases 64-bit Android L emulator for x86 Intel processors

Applications
By John Callaham | Oct 11 2014 | 12:45 pm  | 22 Comments

Android L

Android app developers can now download a new 64-bit Android L emulator image from Google, but there's a big catch: It will only work on x86 Intel-based processors.

The new emulator will allow app developers to optimize their software for 64-bit versions of Android L. In a Google+ post, the company said app creators will be able to access a larger amount of addressable memory space with 64-bit support, along with a bigger number of registers and new instruction sets. While apps built using Java will automatically access all those cool features, Google says apps made using the Android NDK will take some additional optimization to achieve full 64-bit support.

Of course, the vast majority of Android devices use ARM-based processors but there's no word on when a 64-bit emulator will be released for those kinds of CPUs.

Source: Android Developers on Google+ via GSMArena

John Callaham

John Callaham

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Reader comments

Google releases 64-bit Android L emulator for x86 Intel processors

22 Comments
luke31

It would be pretty incredible if I could partition my Surface Pro 3's hard drive and install Android L natively so I could have the best of both worlds. Would this be theoretically possible with 64-bit support?

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thla

Nope, the Surface Pro would be capable of running Android natively in x86 mode as well, so a 64-bit image does nothing in that regard, it should in theory be able to run on the Surface Pro already, but that is dependent on interest in someone porting it over.

Budius

You can already have a pretty "native" android running on any platform, just Google for 'genymotion'

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Jordan Pt

Genymotion isn't as good as it one was, especially if you need to work with anything Google. I personally have moved on to Andyroid. Sure it doesn't have multiple android version support, but I find it way more stable and reliable, especially when writing with Google stuff.

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Budius

That's for sure, Google APIs are non existent on Genymotion n it become a PITA if that's core of your app. But for the app I develop that's just login option n one fragment with optional Google maps, it does the job fine.
But the original OP seems more interested to play games on his tablet, not development anyway.

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havesomejoe

I've been away for a bit but isn't this the first actual L emulator image? I think when L preview launched you could only test on a Nexus 5 and 7.

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Budius

Nope. Since the announcement of L preview with the images for N5 and N7 there was also an L emulator for developers. The news here is the "x86-64" bit.

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retsaw

Why would you want a 64 bit emulator for ARM? Emulating a 64 bit processor on a 32 bit ARM chip will be slow, defeating the point of the 64 bit optimizations. And if you have a 64 bit ARM chip, you would be better off running Android directly sans emulation. Or am I missing something?

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Budius

The emulator is a developer tool that emulates a full complete hardware and software stack. Performance was never a priority of it. The priority always been to make it behave as closely as possible to a real device in terms of coding.

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retsaw

Okay, but developers don't normally do actual development on ARM devices though, do they?

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MisterVe

You are not alone, that's exactly what i was thinking, i don't think emulators like this are meant for anything else than test your apps on a pc...

Peng Kwok

App developers do, but not on a long term basis. Usually in the early stages where you don't have anything up yet and would like to see it work on a reference device.

Peng Kwok

Huh? That's how they design chips in the first place. It's expensive to build something physically then you find out oh crap there's a bug there. Now you've just wasted a bunch of dollars on a paper weight. It doesn't have to be full speed in emulators. You're thinking more of the practical aspects from a user point, not a app or chip designer.

retsaw

But the purpose of this emulator isn't for designing new chips.

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Tom_S

It's a 64 bit emulator for x86. Android L will be running the new Android Runtime (ART) which natively runs on 32 and 64 bit ARM, x86, and MIPS platforms. If you read the release information linked in the article you will see that the build target is x86_64, which is the platform the Android application will be running on natively.