Ephemeral is a screen saver that draws animated IFS fractals, giving an ever-changing display of complex, natural shapes. The fractals evoke the structure of many objects found in nature such as plants, crystals, fire, and clouds.
The fractals are drawn as a swarm of hundreds of thousands of dots, with each one following a unique path. The relationship between these paths brings the dots together to reveal the structure inherent in the mathematical rules that define the fractal.
Try running Ephemeral a few times to get an idea of the variety it’s capable of producing: there’s always something new to see!
This screen saver is an evolution of my Windows-only Ephemera screen saver that I first released way back in 1997.
Some legacy versions of Ephemeral are still available for download, but are no longer supported. However, if your Mac is running a version of macOS older than 10·13, or if your Mac is having problems with its Metal drivers, then these versions may work for you:
Ephemeral 2·0·0 (obsolete version) — 108 kB, requires OS X 10·8 Mountain Lion or later and can use the CPU to draw if neither OpenGL/OpenCL nor Metal is available.
Gallery
Release Notes
Version 3·1·0 — 16th January 2023
Ephemeral is now built as a Universal Binary, meaning it will run natively on Apple Silicon Macs. This may result in a slight improvement in efficiency, but really shouldn’t work any differently.
Added a workaround to fix a problem with screen savers built using Xcode 14·2 failing to show the preview in System Preferences.
Version 3·0·1 — 25th September 2021
Fixed an issue that could potentially affect the drawing process (read/write texture access), though I’m not aware of it actually causing any problems.
The Ephemeral screen saver is now signed and notarized by Apple, meaning it will run without trouble on recent versions of macOS.
Version 3·0·0 — 3rd August 2020
Drawing has been improved so that when different parts of the image overlap they blend together, giving a colourful, translucent appearance.
Animation is even smoother with Ephemeral now running at the same rate as the screen. Previously it was limited to 30 frames per second.
The Metal kernel used for drawing has been rewritten for much improved efficiency.
Metal is now a requirement as OpenGL/OpenCL support has been removed. Ephemeral 2·0·0 and 2·3·0 are still available for older Macs.
Version 2·3·0 — 21st March 2020
Fixed a bug that had the potential to cause instability.
Changed the defaults to give a more mellow style: slower motion with longer trails.
Version 2·2·1 — 1st October 2019
Fixed a bug where the mini-preview was blanked out in the System Preferences when the screen saver options was opened.
The screen saver options are now more legible in Dark Mode.
A few other small fixes and improvements.
Version 2·2·0 — 23rd November 2018
Rendering will use Metal on macOS 10·13 High Sierra or later, falling back to OpenGL/OpenCL.
The dot size is scaled to suit the screen (Metal only). This means, for example, that the mini-preview in System Preferences will draw with smaller dots on Retina displays. And when running as a screen saver on on a large high-resolution screen it will draw with larger dots.
Drawing is smoother due to the animation being locked to the refresh rate of each screen.
Version 2·1·0 (Felix Feles) — 25th September 2016
Significant improvements to the rendering engine have resulted in it running about 15% faster.
Improved smoothness of the animation.
There have been a large number of improvements made to the code resulting in improved efficiency and robustness.
All persisted defaults are removed when the Option key is held when the “Reset to Defaults” button is pressed.
Version 2·0·0 — 28th August 2016
Greatly improved appearance: the images now fade out with a gentle blur effect. Note that if your GPU doesn’t allow Ephemeral to access the graphics system, it falls back to simpler drawing with the CPU.
Ephemeral now draws on all screens, instead of just the primary screen. This can be changed in the screen saver options.
Fully rewritten rendering engine for greater efficiency.
Now requires OS X 10·8 Mountain Lion or later.
Version 1·1·2 — 12th August 2012
Fixed a crash on exit problem when running on OS X 10·8 Mountain Lion.
Version 1·1·1 — 1st August 2011
Ephemeral now regenerates the OpenCL kernels each time OS X is updated. This ensures that Ephemeral picks up any updates to OpenCL, and helps to retain compatibility with new versions of OS X.
Version 1·1·0 — 1st May 2011
Added a CPU mode to allow Ephemeral to run with GPUs that don’t provide the OpenCL features required.
If your Mac doesn’t support everything required by Ephemeral you will see an orange screen with a message that describes the incompatibility.
If any other error occurs then you will see a red screen with a message stating the nature of the problem, along with an invitation to send an error report. This is now as easy as clicking on a “Send Error Report” link in Ephemeral’s configuration options.
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