MSI to revamp BIOS with graphical interface

Posted at: 10:13am 18th January 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

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.