Why is genymotion running so slowly?

Question

I am trying to use genymotion for android development because the stock android emulator is painfully slow. Everyone has been commenting on how fast it is and I cannot seem to get it working at all. I have virtualisation enabled in the bios and I double checked that with intel processor identification utility and it has confirmed this. I upgraded the processor and this hasn't helped. I currently have an intel core 2 quad cpu Q9400 clocked at 2.66GHz which should be plenty fast enough, it copes with everything else fine and I recently upgraded it to this (it is the fastest processor that has the same socket on the motherboard). What is the limiting factor here that is making genymotion take over 10 minutes to boot up? It is using the intel Q45 integrated graphics. Is this the problem? I would upgrade the graphics if this was the case I just wanted to make sure before investing that money and realising that genymotion is still really slow. Thanks

Answer 1

The FAQ at https://www.genymotion.com/help/desktop/faq/ states

Several versions of VirtualBox are known to cause issues in Genymotion. For Genymotion to run properly, make sure you have the right version of VirtualBox installed:

Mac OS X: 5.0.26 (a sound issue prevents version 5.0.28 to run properly) Windows: 5.0.28 Linux: 5.0.28 In any case, do not use versions 5.1.x, as they are known to cause sound issues and in some cases prevent Genymotion to start.

My issue was running VirtualBox 5.1.x - I installed the recommended version and all was well again