System requirements and enabling virtualization

Minimum specs

Emulade needs hardware virtualization turned on. This isn't a Emulade-specific setting, it's the same CPU feature that Hyper-V, VMware, and KVM all rely on.

Windows: enabling VT-x or AMD-V

1. Restart and enter your BIOS or UEFI settings (usually Delete, F2, or F10 at boot).
2. Find the virtualization setting, often under CPU Configuration. It may be called Intel VT-x, AMD-V, or SVM Mode depending on your motherboard.
3. Enable it, save, and restart.

If you're already running Hyper-V, WSL2, or Docker Desktop, virtualization is already on. Emulade runs alongside all three without conflicts, since it talks to the same Windows Hypervisor Platform they do.

macOS: nothing to enable

Virtualization.framework is built into macOS 13 and later on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. There's no setting to turn on. If Emulade reports virtualization is unavailable on a supported macOS version, see Emulade won't start.

Linux: KVM

Check that KVM is available:

kvm-ok

If that command isn't found, check for /dev/kvm directly:

ls -l /dev/kvm

Add your user to the kvm group so Emulade can access it without running as root:

sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER

Log out and back in for the group change to take effect.