Why do we default to -gpu swiftshader_indirect if HAXM is supported by MacOS Latest?

[mrk-han]

According to the readme, it seems the default GPU flag uses -gpu swiftshader_indirect, but this is the software acceleration which the Android Docs here say to try to use if Hardware Acceleration is not available. But, MacOS-Latest allegedly does support HAXM and Hardware Acceleration.

1. Is this really the default that the ReactiveCircus/Android-Emulator-Runner uses?
2. Or is this only used an example in the readme? The wording is confusing, because it says the default emulator options are Default emulator-options: -no-window -gpu swiftshader_indirect -no-snapshot -noaudio -no-boot-anim

I recommend not defaulting to this, or adding clarification in the readme.

[ychescale9]

Yes that's the default, but you can override it including any other emulator options with emulator-options: -no-window -gpu host -no-snapshot -noaudio -no-boot-anim for example.

But as far as I remember host mode won't work due to other limitations. Feel free to give it a go and let me know if it works!

[mrk-han]

@ychescale9 Tried out gpu -host and saw WARNING | Your GPU drivers may have a bug. If you experience graphical issues, please consider switching to software rendering. and then the emulator never booted 😂

[mrk-han]

Error: Timeout waiting for emulator to boot.
[725](https://github.com/PathwayVets/thrive-android-app/actions/runs/3185448675/jobs/5195031526#step:12:730)
INFO    | Wait for emulator (pid 3105) 20 seconds to shutdown gracefully before kill;you can set environment variable ANDROID_EMULATOR_WAIT_TIME_BEFORE_KILL(in seconds) to change the default value (20 seconds)

This was the eventual error -- perhaps I'll increase the time and check if it will actually boot

[mrk-han]

Increased time to 2 minutes and still no boot. Using -gpu auto now which I assume defaults to swiftshader_indirect. So, seems like we aren't able to utilize the hardware acceleration after all? Will do more experimenting...

[ychescale9]

This might help although I'm not too hopeful https://github.com/google/android-emulator-container-scripts

[mrk-han]

@ychescale9 Funny thing is I helped update that readme before they open-sourced it from the internal repo. But I haven't checked it out much since. I really would prefer to run in Docker so things could be more portable. Thanks for the suggestion.

It'd be a real shame if Hardware Acceleration couldn't be taken advantage of on the Github Actions/Azure runners.

Will do more investigating...

[mrk-han]

Turns out HAXM isn't supported by default.

Ran emulator -accel-check on the macOS-11 agent. (macOS 11.7)

2022-10-12T02:17:38.3163720Z accel:
2022-10-12T02:17:38.3169550Z 6
2022-10-12T02:17:38.3200330Z HAXM is not installed on this machine

[mrk-han]

Added this because I couldn't find out why this was the case actions/runner-images#6388

We should also probably change the readme... 😞

[mrk-han]

Closing as HAXM is not pre-installed by macOS-11 or macOS-12.

See: actions/runner-images#6388