Mono for Android - How to speed up debugging?

Question

I am using Mono for Android and I a like it so far. My only concern is that debugging projects is very slow. When I start debugging in Visual Studio sometimes it takes 4-5 seconds to move from one breakpoint to the next one. It seems the debugger also stops at lines I didn't mark with breakpoints. Is there a way to speed up debugging?

Xamarin - Mono for Android: http://xamarin.com/monoforandroid

I am using the emulator; running the project from Visual Studio directly. I tried to create very powerful devices; more resources but it didn't really help. I changed processor affinity as well but it didn't make a difference.

I have a pretty powerful machine; Sony Vaio F Series Notebook 256GB SSD, Intel Core i7-2860QM, 2.50GHz, 8 GB RAM. Bios hardware virtualization is on.

I am using a licensed and registered version of Mono for Android (not the trial version), Visual Studio 2010 Pro and .net 4. The operating system is Windows 7 Pro 64bit.

On the Mono for Android forums the guys suggested using my phone instead. They claim that the issue is related to the emulator, which is unlikely since I don't have this problem with Java and Eclipse.

http://mono-for-android.1047100.n5.nabble.com/Debugging-in-VS2010-is-unusable-td4796099.html;cid=1326191848900-192

Answer 1

My experience with the Android emulator is, the lower the resolution of the device the faster it runs. Also enabling snapshots helps a lot.

Xamarin has announced that next release of Mono for Android will support x86. The x86 version of the emulator is way faster and that could resolve your painful experience with the phone emulator.

Answer 2

You might try Genymotion. Super easy install, works out-of-the-box with MonoDroid, and is really fast (pretty much instant stepping in debugger).