can't launch android emulator while logged in over vnc?

i have a headless box running bbqlinux that i'm trying to use as an android-studio development box. when i go to launch an .avd in the emulator, i receive this error: Cannot launch AVD in emulator Output: emulator: ERROR: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration! Please ensure KVM is properly installed and usable. CPU acceleration status: This user doesn't have permissions to use KVM (/dev/kvm). this was freaking me out and i spent a good amount of time trying to sure that everything was enabled, installed correctly, permissions set, etc... then: i plugged a screen in and logged directly into the box and bam! it works fine. so my problem is maybe the vncserver? i'm using tigervnc that i set up according to this page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Vncserver just in case it helps, my xstartup file is unset SESSION_MANAGER unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS [ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup [ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources vncconfig -iconic & startxfce4 & other than that, i've not changed the default environment hardly at all except to add lighttable, ssh, & vnc. so my question is really - should i not be doing it this way? is there a better workflow or vnc server program for what i'm trying to do? - is there a command switch or option that i missed that maybe enables the hardware acceleration over vnc? thanks!