Benchmark time: Comparing Andy, AmiDuOS, Genymotion, BlueStacks

PC users can emulate Android on their desktop using tools like Andy (free), Genymotion (freemium), AmiDuOS ($15 with a 30-days trial), or BlueStacks (freemium). This year we reviewed Andy and AmiDuOS and both emulators performed very well during our tests. To get a better picture of their capabilities, alongside other Android emulators, we decided to run a few benchmark tests using AnTuTu Benchmark and 3D Mark.

During our tests we used the same host machine running a 64-bit Windows 8.1 with 4 GB RAM and 2.7 GHz i5 Intel CPU, with minimum background activity and non-essential Windows processes disabled. The graphics card was a GeForce GT 220 with the latest nVidia WHQL driver.

All emulators used 1200 MB RAM and a resolution of 960x720. AmiDuOS allowed for RAM to be set via its configuration tool, BlueStacks allowed for RAM to be set via Registry, while Andy and Genymotion had better virtual machine configuration options for allocating CPU/RAM resources. Andy and Genymotion, beside RAM, allowed for CPU settings too - both were allowed 4 CPU cores. There are no manual CPU settings to be made for AmiDuOS and BlueStacks.

The Android versions used were the latest available for each emulator at this time, with the intention of testing the very last stable update that each emulator had to offer. We used the following Android versions: 4.2.2 for Andy, 5.0.1 for DuOS, 5.1 for Genymotion, and 4.4.2 for BlueStacks.

Keep in mind that this test is not 100% accurate as it can't be run with exact same CPU values for all emulators, the Android versions differ, and background host conditions can't be 100% stable at all times. Nevertheless, you can get an idea of how well each emulator performs under relatively similar conditions.

AnTuTu test results

• 67628 Andy
• 65401 DuOS
• 64228 Genymotion
• 51054 BlueStacks

Detailed results for Andy:

• UX Multitask 11106
• UX Runtime 1734
• CPU integer 7929
• CPU float-point 6672
• CPU Single-thread integer 2435
• CPU Single-thread float-point 4499
• RAM Operation 4698
• RAM Speed 5061
• GPU 2D graphics 1649 - best
• GPU 3D graphics 18513 (960x720)
• Storage I/O 2587 - best
• Database I/O 745

Detailed results for DuOS:

• UX Multitask 11725
• UX Runtime 4685 - best
• CPU integer 7204
• CPU float-point 6084
• CPU Single-thread integer 2490
• CPU Single-thread float-point 4825
• RAM Operation 4396
• RAM Speed 5075
• GPU 2D graphics 1600
• GPU 3D graphics 13842 (960x720)
• Storage I/O 2585
• Database I/O 890 - best

Detailed results for Genymotion:

• UX Multitask 11860 - best
• UX Runtime 585
• CPU integer 8858 - best
• CPU float-point 7603 - best
• CPU Single-thread integer 2755 - best
• CPU Single-thread float-point 5251 - best
• RAM Operation 5073 - best
• RAM Speed 5076 - best
• GPU 2D graphics 1450
• GPU 3D graphics 12106 (960x720)
• Storage I/O 2587 - best
• Database I/O 875

Detailed results for BlueStacks:

• UX Multitask 8663
• UX Runtime 2195
• CPU integer 2293
• CPU float-point 2132
• CPU Single-thread integer 2685
• CPU Single-thread float-point 5173
• RAM Operation 1495
• RAM Speed 1839
• GPU 2D graphics 1320
• GPU 3D graphics 19880 (960x720) - best
• Storage I/O 2580
• Database I/O 800

While Andy won on the overall score, Genymotion who ranked 3 overall, did manage to win the majority of tests on AnTuTu, but scored poorly on the graphics ones. Bluestacks scored poorly overall, but manage to outrank all emulators on the 3D graphics test.

We noticed that results vary a bit when repeating the tests on the same emulator so we picked the best results for each emulator after running the benchmark tests 3-4 times on each one.

3DMark test results

• 32730 Andy
• 31502 DuOS
• 27522 BlueStacks
• 26589 Genymotion

Detailed scores for Andy: 34350 on graphics, 28092 on physics, 128.9 FPS on graphics test 1, 177.6 FPS on graphics test 2, 89.2 FPS on physics test.

Detailed scores for DuOS: 32569 on graphics, 28261 on physics, 165.6 FPS on graphics test 1, 123.7 FPS on graphics test 2, 89.7 FPS on physics test.

Detailed scores for Genymotion: 25683 on graphics, 30337 on physics, 102.5 FPS on graphics test 1, 122.7 FPS on graphics test 2, 96.3 FPS on physics test.

Detailed scores for BlueStacks: 40166 on graphics, 13095 on physics, 188.3 FPS on graphics test 1, 162.8 FPS on graphics test 2, 41.6 FPS on physics test.

Final words

Andy and AmiDuOS had a solid performance on our tests, but Genymotion and BlueStacks had some interesting results on some parts of the tests, such as the graphics tests where BlueStacks performed better than expected at some points.

What is your experience using Android emulators on Windows?