FAQ-0713 How can I speed up the Nokia 9210 emulator?


FAQ-0713 How can I speed up the Nokia 9210 emulator?

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Classification:	General	Category:	Emulator
Created:	07/06/2001	Modified:	04/10/2003
Number:	FAQ-0713
Platform:	Symbian OS v6.0

Question:
How can I speed up the Nokia 9210 emulator?

Answer:
There are three main ways you can speed up the UDEB variant of the emulator:

Removing LindaStart.dll

On a real device this DLL sets up some essential connections to the 9200 series telephony modules and loads the Nokia splash screen. On the WINS emulator the telephony calls do not work but instead time-out. This significantly increases the emulator "boot" time. This DLL can be removed without any major side-effects for normal development and testing

Removing *.PDB files

PDB (Programmer DataBase) files are created by Microsoft Visual Studio at compile time in debug builds. They contain information which assists debugging and stepping through code. However, when a DLL is loaded this PDB file is also referenced, significantly increasing the emulator boot time once more. By removing PDB files this overhead is also removed. During normal development the vast majority of these PDBs are not needed. When you are debugging your application you can simply replace the specific PDB files you need to use temporarily.

Rebasing DLL files

When Windows loads the emulator DLL files it tries to load them into specific areas of memory, starting at an address specified in the DLL file. If something is already loaded in that area of memory a clash will occur and Windows will have to spend time trying to re-locate the DLL you are loading to the next available address. By rebasing all DLLs you can ensure that none of them clash with each other.

This process can be automated by installing these two files on your SDK drive (in the folder specified by the EPOCROOT environment variable) and then running EMFast.bat. This will take a few minutes to complete but only needs to be done once per SDK install.

Another tip (which should apply to all Emulators post v5) is to prevent the emulator for writing debugging information to your hard disk. If you look in your TEMP folder, you will see a file called EPOCWIND.OUT. Over time, this grows and slows down the emulator. If you delete this file, re-create a new, empty document called EPOCWIND.OUT, then set that file as read-only, the emulator will no longer try to save this debugging information.