Black & White (game) on Intel - jerky and sluggish

I got a new iMac about a year ago (2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, running 10.5.5 at the moment) after my beloved and much-updated seven-year-old G4 bit the dust. I used to play the game Black & White quite a bit, and I recently started it up on the iMac for the first time -- and it's very screwy. The video stutters quite a bit, the mouse behaves strangely (I have a MightyMouse, but I actually just switched it out for a Logitech because I thought the mouse was the issue -- shame on me), and the video component of the startup doesn't work at all, though it does start eventually. (It always ran fine on the G4.)

The biggest factor seems to be the CD, which spins jerkily and hums every time I try to do anything the least bit video-related (including...in-game videos, as well as just moving through the land). Then it will calm down and be completely fine until I try to move a lot or a video starts. (Moving is also hard because the mouse registers double-clicks, which = "go here," when I didn't double-click, and it won't let me right-click consistently. This is true with the new mouse as well.)

I tried running the game without the CD, since I have plenty of room -- but I'm not allowed to, even though I have all the data on my computer. I tried googling this problem and came up with a bunch of stuff about "no-CD cracks" and such. I AM NOT HERE LOOKING FOR A CRACK -- I have owned the game for years, and it does run, just weirdly and jerkily. What I'm wondering is: does anybody know

1. if there is a known issue with Intel Macs and this game;

2. if there's some way to calm it the heck down; and

3. if it's possible to get it to run (legitimately) without the CD? I doubt that's the whole issue, but I can live with the mouse thing if I can get the CD to quit jerking. I get that they're worried about piracy and such, but I'm pretty annoyed that running it without the CD isn't allowed -- even back when I bought it, copying 640MB to your hard drive wasn't an impossibility.

I should mention that I had an issue with Myst 3 (yeah, I like to play old games) that was kind of similar, but much more severe -- intolerable video and audio jerkiness that made the game unplayable -- and I downloaded a developer thing that lets me turn off one of the processors. This made Myst 3 run like a dream but hasn't seemed to help B&W at all.

Sorry this is so long. I know it's a longshot, but thanks for any help you can give!

The problem is that the game was written for Macs that used PowerPC processors. On the Intel Macs, these older programs run under the "Rosetta" environment, which basically emulates the old hardware so that these older apps/games that were written before the switch to Intel can run. It works great and seamlessly for many apps. Unfortunately, with games like this, there's just too much overhead on the system for them to run well.

Ohhhh yeah. I remember that Rosetta business now. Yeah, it's always been kind of a delicate flower of a game, so I guess it's not surprising that it's having trouble.

I'm muddling through anyway; the CD stuff seems to have eased up now that I'm past the beginning and more into the gameplay part. The mouse stuff is still pretty annoying. I might abandon it, but for now I can live with it.

Thought I might go buy Black & White 2, but it looks like it never got ported. Sigh.

lifeisabeach -- thanks!