Terragen for Macintosh and Intel Mac Compatibility

With the advent of Intel based Macs Apple has created a new type of application called a Universal Binary which is able to run natively on both PowerPC based Macs and the new Intel based Macs. Applications which have not been converted to Universal Binaries, that is they only contain PowerPC code, can still run on Intel Macs using the Rosetta technology included with OS X on Intel Macs. Rosetta is a "dynamic binary translator" which, in simple terms, converts computer instructions for PowerPC chips (G3, G4 and G5 chips for example) into computer instructions for Intel chips while the program being converted is running.

Terragen Mac v0.9

Terragen Mac v0.9 is a PowerPC application. It will not be converted to a Universal Binary, but is compatible with Intel Macs and will run using Rosetta. Terragen Mac v0.9 has been tested with Rosetta on a prototype Intel Mac and has been found to work well. It will be tested further on an Intel iMac as soon as possible. If possible any problems found when running under Rosetta will be corrected.

The decision was made not to update Terragen Mac v0.9 to a Universal Binary for several reasons. The main one is that Terragen 2 is under development and that is already a Universal Binary. Originally Apple announced that Intel Macs would first be available in June 2006 or thereabouts, which fit very well with when we planned to have Terragen 2 available. Apple was able to release Intel Macs in January 2006 though, six months earlier than originally planned, so that doesn't work out quite so well for Terragen. Updating Terragen Mac v0.9 to a Universal Binary would require some fundamental changes which would be too much work at this point, considering Terragen 2 is on the horizon. It would also mean dropping support for OS 9 which we have promised not to do until Terragen 2.

Generally speaking Terragen Mac v0.9 works very well under Rosetta on Intel Macs, and is surprisingly fast, though not as fast as if it were running natively. The only point where it really slows down is when rendering water or strong atmosphere effects, which are the most computationally intensive parts of rendering. Apple mentions this is an area where Rosetta is likely to be slow. Although rendering is slower Terragen Mac v0.9 is very usable on Intel Macs.

Terragen 2

Terragen 2 is already under development as a Universal Binary, and will be available as a Universal Binary from the first release.