Android Emulator startup is slow

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20051073/emulator-for-android-4-4-kitkat-is-not-starting

Unfortunately the emulator does take a very long time to load. A regular complaint amongst Android developers.

It sometimes helps if you go into the AVD configuration and modify your KitKat emulator and tick the checkbox that says Use Host GPU. This makes it slightly faster.

Also I've found that if you use the default RAM space that it decides, usually over 1000, it takes a stupidly long time, if it loads up at all. I usually set mine to 512MB, 700+MB at a push but reducing the amount of RAM that the emulator can have helps.

There is also a different emulator you can use, although it currently doesn't yet support KitKat, although they say its coming soon, I've heard quite a few positive comments.

You can find the alternative emulator at http://www.genymotion.com/