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MSI to revamp BIOS with graphical interface
Taking advantage of Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) technology, MSI plans to revamp the BIOS on future motherboards
While Windows has become flashier and PC games have become amazingly realistic, the humble BIOS is still stuck somewhere in the early 1990s. Somehow, the classic red, white and blue ASCII characters have managed to cling on to the PC architecture, despite looking as advanced as a text adventure, but MSI has decided that the BIOS's retro party is over.
Taking advantage of Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) technology, which sits between the motherboard's base level of firmware and your operating system, the new BIOS interface will support graphical menus and mouse control, as well as the ability run small applications before you even load an OS.
MSI says that these could include games, media players and browsers, although Richard Stewart, MSI's UK marketing manager, told Custom PC that games and media players are 'still a little bit advanced,' as the company is still getting to grips with the new technology. However, he also mentioned that the interface could be good for easy-to-use 'live update' style features, as well as Instant Messenger apps.
Even though MSI is still experimenting with the technology, Stewart said that 'Even at this early BETA stage we have seen excellent OC [overclock] potential using the current generation of MSI motherboards.' He also said that MSI plans to phase the EFI BIOS in with its next generation of motherboards.
This isn't the first time that big changes have been promised for the BIOS. American Megatrends developed a GUI with mouse support for the BIOS back in 1998, but its lack of flexibility frustrated a lot of people, and the original interface ended up being reinstated.
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While I really see no need at all for a fancy BIOS GUI or mouse usage, I am loosely following the life of the LinuxBIOS project. After all, Linux blows away the competition in other areas; why not BIOS too? The last thing there ever ought to be in there is any Microcruft crapware. Aero-schmaero virus bios! I am quite happy with my MSI / AMIBIOS the way it is now anyhow, especially as the function keys kill the gaudy blue/red/white (*Ahem***erhmerican**) color scheme and make it a nice sharp gray scale that is easy on the eyes and UNCLUTTERED as someone mentioned earlier. I pity the nice folks who got sucked into downgrading to Vista! lol.. SVA
Comment by Sasha_A1 at 3:53am 6th April 2008
Looks nice but doesn't achieve anything, now if they had it so you could use your mouse in it that would be handy
Comment by spiderIPC at 10:14pm 30th January 2008
Just look at the screenies, it's nothing more than a traditional BIOS with a fancy wallpaper and added mouse support.. new users will still be overwhelmed with the technical jargons once they're inside the menu.. They have to go one step further to include a true under-friendly interface in order to make a difference so it's easier to set up without too much technical knowledge.
Comment by joylee0359 at 9:02am 25th January 2008
good because bios could in theory give you a graphical layout of how your overclock is going bad because they are talking about being bale to install stuff onto it. why wouldnt you just use your os
Comment by rjkoneill at 10:09am 23rd January 2008
I kinda like the BIOS as it is...for me its a breath of fresh air compared to the clutter many operating systems come with (*cough* vista *cough*).
Comment by cjash at 2:25am 22nd January 2008
I don't see the point in making the BIOS look pretty BIOS stands for Basic input output system. It's supposed to be Basic not pretty, and wouldn't this drain the power in the mobo battery faster having to worry about all of the pretty pictures?
Comment by Bonzo450 at 5:08pm 21st January 2008
another article, theinquirer, states it is true step to 64 bit only. Love that Mouse thingie. With USB 3.0 transferring 400+ mb/sec, so any display should be viable & more memory address of 64 bit, it may be SOLID step up. XP had buffer overrun problems, due to too many piplines & too long. Smal 16 bit blasts got lost in cpu & froze up. This is step to smoother faster computing with more unlimited display potential. when all is said & done.GREAT IMPROVEMENT.I PITY FOOL WHO DOSN'T USE VISTA ULTIMATE 64 BIT O/S. thomas s von drashek
Comment by thomasxstewart at 9:23pm 19th January 2008
The main advantage EFI delivers is you can code it in higher level programming language. Which leads to better bioses with less bugs faster than before. ASM in all its greatness is becomming a rare talent around programmers so being able to develop a BIOS with i.e C is very welcome. But I hope this is a temporary thing and Linuxbios will take over soon....
Comment by conholster at 8:22am 19th January 2008
I don't think you will be using a mouse to navigate through the BIOS, I think the whole idea is just to update and bring the BIOS the present. I doubt they will overdo it, and if it's anything like the pictures above then I'll be happy!
Comment by culley at 7:13am 19th January 2008
if only it was a whole new os if only i could run quake 3 from it plz i want a msi os free when u buy the mobo MSI PLZ PLZ PLZ i would give my soul but i allready sold it for a cookie. cookie was nice :p
Comment by megapig at 12:09am 19th January 2008
i think it would be nice, but i'm just fine with the bios as they are. i do spend a lot of time in the bios atm but the arrow key interface is good enough. however i can see the benefit of running apps without an OS, extreeme overclockers could run cpu-z without having to boot into windows. depending on the versatility of it we could build baisic machines to use for media applications without having to buy any crap from M$ and not worryig about compatability with linux, because everything is compatable with BIOS in a way. of course these are just 'superficial' changes, i'm sure that there is more to be had than a graphical interface here.
Comment by yougotkicked at 5:31pm 18th January 2008
The current one does the job fine for me. I dont need an 'aero' verion thanks ;)
Comment by pveater at 2:35pm 18th January 2008
While it's good the bios screen is getting dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century... joe average will never use it or look at it so i can see it being a 'nice to have' feature on your high end boards rather than an outright 'must-have' feature... well to start with anyway
Comment by RedFlames at 12:30pm 18th January 2008
I don't think I'd be using the bios enough for a graphical interface. The new EFI looks damn good though
Comment by zone12 at 11:21am 18th January 2008
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