It seems Apple's Rosetta emulation technology is finally starting to flex its proverbial muscles to their full extent thanks to Mac OS X 10.4.8. According to Macworld Lab tests, some non-Intel-native apps have received significant performance boosts on systems running September's OS X update. Some systems were even reported to have experienced a performance boost of up to 30 percent.

For a peek at the improvements that Rosetta experienced in OS X 10.4.8, check out the image below. If you can't read the text, just click on it for a larger version.

So, what accounts for the boost? There's a bit in Apple's release notes that says OS X 10.4.8 "improves the accuracy of Rosetta numerics and addresses Altivec translation issues on Intel-based Macs," but other than that there's not a lot. Still, these new gains are very welcome, even more so for those who are starting to lose their patience while waiting for their favorite applications to become universal.