How to Fix emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration?

Introduction to the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!

The emulator is the facility used by Android developers to test their apps or games on a specific phone or tablet emulator before rolling out the production version onto actual devices. One can set up an emulator using either command line parameters, configuration files, custom images & virtual devices. The emulator can be executed using many options, which you can find in this link. However, if the emulator gives the “emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!” while launching it, then it means that your computer does not fulfill some of the requirements needed by the emulator to start successfully.

What is causing the “x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!”?

The emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration message is a bug that comes from the emulator’s inability to find a suitable graphics card driver when running Android. It is an emulator error, not something with your actual phone model.

What can I do to fix emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration?

There are two ways you can get rid of this emulator error and run the emulator successfully again. The first option involves updating your graphics card drivers and enabling virtualization support in BIOS on your computer. If this Method does not work for you, try using the Genymotion emulator instead, which does not have this issue. However, keep in mind that it offers only emulated phone hardware, not full emulator support.

Option 1: Fix emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! by updating your graphics card drivers and enabling virtualization support in BIOS on your computer

a) If you are running Windows, follow these steps to fix emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!:

i. Start up the emulator again via the command line.

ii. Type ‘Emulator’ followed by entering.

iii. If the emulator starts running with no errors, that means you have fixed emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! and can now close the command prompt window opened earlier to start it.

b) If you are running Linux, follow these steps to fix emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! :

i. continue with the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!: emulator -and NNNNNN and press enter to relaunch the emulator.

ii. Type ‘Emulator’ followed by entering.

iii. If the emulator opens and closes quickly without issues, that means you have fixed emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! and can now close the command prompt window opened earlier to start it.

Solution 1: Installing Intel HAXM module

Installing the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration solution seems to be done via SDK Manager. Follow these steps for all details on how to download and install the Intel HAXM emulator accelerator manager via SDK Manager for Windows/Mac/Linux machines:

Download the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration solution according to your operating system (x86 or x64), then follow the following article step-by-step guideline for installation.

Solution 2: Disabling Hardware-assisted virtualization from Antivirus

Settings.

1) Go to “Settings” in Avast Antivirus, select “Active Protection,” then click on the “App-control” panel. 2) Disable emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! by unchecking the box labeled emulator 3) Restart your computer for changes to occur. 

This Method should be applied ONLY if Solution 1 does not work.

Note that you might need to restart the emulator manually for the emulator to start working again. For example, in the case of Android Emulator running on VirtualBox, please press Ctrl+F12 to open device manager, navigate through USB devices and disable the USB controller with ID 058f:6387 (Alcor Micro Corp.). After doing that emulator should start properly.

Screenshot of Avast settings emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! Fix.

You may also like How To Fix emulator: emulator: Failed to Create Emulator, How to get Android Studio emulator running on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, or Debian (without using Wine), and Unable to open the AVD in emulator x86 emulator requires hardware acceleration. 

If this did not work for you, check out the next Solution.

Alternative Solutions! 1) Try opening your project with SDK tools 25.0.1+ installed by following these steps: Download Android SDK Tools 25.0.1+ from here Extract it somewhere on your drive Open Android SDK Manager Click on “SDK Tools” tab and make sure the following packages are checked: Android SDK Tools, Android SDK Platform-tools, Android SDK Build-tools (current version) Click on install/update

2) If this does not work for you as well, try downloading the emulator from emulator.google.com.

3) Your final Solution to the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! is to update your drivers so that emulator can run without any errors. Note that this Solution is intended for advanced users only! You may need to use Advanced SystemCare Free and its Driver Updater tool to update your drivers successfully and safely. 

Solution 3: Enabling Hardware Virtualization from BIOS/UEFI settings

This Solution might vary depending on your motherboard and CPU manufacturer, but you should have a BIOS/UEFI setting called either “Enable Virtualization Technology” or “Enable VT-x.” This technology is required for the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration to work. It may need to be enabled even if you see emulator: emulator: error: cannot create ELF object files in the emulator output.

To enable this technology from your BIOS/UEFI settings, you will need to reboot your PC and enter your BIOS/UEFI boot menu (typically by pressing F2, Del, Esc, F10, or something similar). Then use the arrow keys to navigate to the “Enable Virtualization Technology” or “Enable VT-x” option and enable it. Some BIOS/UEFI settings re-enabling this technology might require a PC restart, so if the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration doesn’t stop after enabling this setting, be sure to reboot your PC for good measure.

Once you have completed the steps above (and reboot your device), emulator: error: cannot create ELF object files in the emulator output should no longer appear when attempting to run an Android emulator on Windows 10.

Solution 4: Enabling Windows Hypervisor Platform (if applicable)

Note: This Solution only applies to the emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! If you have an AMD CPU.

If emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! is being shown on your emulator, but it is not showing on the emulator for your friend’s Windows 10 device using the same emulator version, emulator version, etc., there are high chances that this issue is caused by the absence of a required Hypervisor Platform (HP) capability on your device.

Emulators require the HP feature to build and run apps for ARM devices/emulators. Suppose your PC doesn’t support this feature. In that case, the emulator won’t be able to start and show such errors as “emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!” emulator will not start at all.

Download and install the KB4058258 update (if you’re lucky to have this update installed) – it’ll re-introduce the feature (HP). Otherwise, move on to the next step.

To enable Windows Hypervisor Platform manually, do the following steps: Press “Win+R” combination, Type in “gpedit.msc “command, and click/tap on the OK button to open Local Group Policy Editor. If prompted by UAC, then click/tap on Yes or Continue. In Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to the location below. (see screenshot below) Note Windows 10 Pro x64 for example purposes only.

Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Hypervisor Platform Enable the ” Enable Hyper-V” option to turn on HP via command:

Type in “command prompt” (Windows+R, Type in “cmd “, press enter). Type in the following command and press Enter button after each line. Make sure you don’t miss any line of code below when typing them in Command Prompt. bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto Reboot emulator to apply emulator: emulator: error: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!

Note If you miss any line of command mentioned above, your PC will be stuck at the initial boot screen and won’t load up properly.

Conclusion

I hope this article was helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below. I’ll try to answer all questions as best as possible.