Note that you have to enable GPU Emulation for any given AVD first! A lot of people seem (understandably) confused that their emulator wasn't suddenly much faster with this update.
Quick Start Guide to Getting GPU Emulation Working:
* Open up the settings for your AVD (either by creating a new one or editing a current one)
* Go to Hardware (near the bottom), and hit new on the far right
* Select GPU emulation from the drop down list and hit okay
* Find GPU emulation in the list of properties under hardware, click on the value column and set it to "yes"
See here[1] for more ways on how to speed up your emulator.
I am wondering about the opposite case: how do they emulate graphics when there is no GPU support? Do they emulate the GPU device, or use a software library? Which library if it is done in software?
Essentially all of the commands on the device are translated into native OpenGL calls, so I suspect if you don't have a GPU you just get the default OpenGL software renderer.
To add an anecdote about this new functionality, I have been unsuccessful using the GPU acceleration (x64 Windows 7 with an nvidia GTX 560 w/latest drivers). With the emulation on the AVD GPFs with emulator-arm.exe has stopped working (invalid access). Anyone have success?
Quick Start Guide to Getting GPU Emulation Working:
* Open up the settings for your AVD (either by creating a new one or editing a current one)
* Go to Hardware (near the bottom), and hit new on the far right
* Select GPU emulation from the drop down list and hit okay
* Find GPU emulation in the list of properties under hardware, click on the value column and set it to "yes"
See here[1] for more ways on how to speed up your emulator.
[1]: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/devices/emulat...