Multiwave Direct Digital Alpha

Getting all of the setup and configuration out of the way was the difficult part, from that point on, using the Multiwave Alpha System was no different than your run of the mill Windows NT PC workstation.

No software came pre-installed with the Alpha system so there wasn't much of anything to play around with, but Windows NT acted and performed just as it would if one were running it on a x86 system. 

After downloading and installing the latest version of Digital's Binary x86 Translator, FX!32, a new icon appeared both on the desktop and in the systray.  Double clicking the Install x86 Application icon launched the FX!32 installer which quickly took me through the process of installing the first copy of any x86 program on the test system, Ziff Davis' Winbench 98.  The installation went quite smoothly, although a bit on the sluggish side at first while copying data to the hard drive, the setup procedure continued without a hiccup, never did the Setup software crash or exhibit any out of the ordinary behavior because of the nature of the platform it was being installed on. 

A few more installs of other applications ranging from Microsoft Office 97, Adobe Photoshop, and Truespace 3.0 truly revealed how simple it is to make use of Digital's outstanding Binary x86 translator, however this was only the beginning.  Simply being able to install an x86 application is only a fraction of the beauty of FX!32, by using the FX!32 manager you can optimize x86 applications over and over again until you approach a level of performance closer to full speed although not nearly to that point as of now.  Most applications took three or four runs in order to get the Alpha system to begin to launch and work with them to a certain level of efficiency.  Let it be noted that not all x86 applications will work with FX!32 v1.2, Microsoft Frontpage 98 for example will not install on an Alpha system, the engineers at Digital are still working on a fix (Frontpage 97 does work on the other hand). 

Microsoft Office 97 was probably the best example of how well an Alpha system can run x86 code, all of the applications in the Office 97 Professional Suite performed as if they were running on a Pentium II system, with no noticeable differences between a Pentium II - 333 system and the Alpha, however the Alpha obviously didn't outperform the Pentium II - 333 in any of the Business Office 97 tasks that were experimented with.  As time goes on, and as future revisions to the FX!32 software are made the Alpha platform will slowly become a threat to Intel's throne under Windows NT, but for now, it is simply a lesser if not equal alternative.

Adobe Photoshop ran fairly well on the Alpha system, converting a large 10MB JPEG file from a 1280 x 1024 resolution to a more manageable 640 x 480 took approximately 20 - 45% longer to do on the Alpha than the Pentium II - 333 test system took, even after Photoshop was optimized using FX!32 numerous times.   Performing various filters on the image once again left the Pentium II as the champ, it is quite obvious that the high speed L2 cache of the Pentium II (in this case operating at 187.5MHz) really benefits the system's performance under Windows NT.   Some of the more expensive Alpha processors, like the 21164 or the 21264 with on-chip L2 cache should perform much better under Windows NT however that eliminates the price point comparison between the Alpha and the Pentium II system.

The question was raised as to why the tests only included Windows NT as a benchmarking platform, naturally this is unfair to the 64-bit 21164PC and quite biased towards the Intel Pentium II, however the 21164PC and the Digital 164SX Motherboard were both specifically designed for use under Windows NT.   The 164SX manual even specifies that it is a Windows NT motherboard, there are Alpha systems designed to run under Digital Unix which are available on the market, however their price reflects their outstanding performance as well.