NEWS: Now the Android emulator allows faster graphics.
The graphics in the Android emulator used to be a pain for programmers because of it’s low performance. But now the Android 4.0.3 r2 emulator includes GPU processing that allows faster graphics and greater resolution.
See the video and notice the difference:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T–vFtyZvc4[/youtube]
It seems like this new feature is still not available for Windows 7 64bits so if you want to use it in that kind of system you will need to leave the “32bits compatibility” options activated for the emulator.
The full description of this new features can be found in Android’s developers blog: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/04/faster-emulator-with-better-hardware.html