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Gigabyte has come up with a way to make its UEFI BIOS interface even easier to navigate while simultaneously jumping on the 3D bandwagon, but not in the way you think. In reality, Gigabyte's 3D BIOS technology is a fancy way of navigating your motherboard's BIOS with an isometric graphical view of the board and all of its parts, and it's actually pretty cool.
No 3D glasses or special displays are required, because it's not that kind of 3D. It's just an easier way to point and click through various settings without having to dive headfirst through various menus.
"The basic idea is to make BIOS far more graphical, far more intuitive, and easier to access for entry-level and mainstream users than ever before," Gigabyte explains in the embedded YouTube video above.
If you don't have three minutes and change to spare to watch the video demo, the gist of it is when you click on the 3D BIOS option within the UEFI BIOS, it brings up a graphical image of your specific motherboard. As you run the mouse cursor over various parts of the board, such as the DIMM slots or CPU socket, a pop-up bubble offers up a basic explanation of what it is that's highlighted and what settings you can change. It's elementary (and optional) for power users, but could be a neat way to introduce less experienced users to the BIOS.
Could you see yourself using something like this?
Comments are closed on this article
jnwoll
November 08, 2011 at 2:25pm
I'm still holding out for a complete VR version, where I can use a forklift and cranes to put in memory and a cpu.
Like movies, aren't the books always better?
eikichi
November 08, 2011 at 11:37am
As long as it's optional I don't really care. I would never use it myself. It's more of a nuisance factor that it will likely inflate the size of the BIOS image.
If motherboard makers really wanted to make the system BIOS more user friendly they would elaborate on the descriptions of various settings. For some of the more cryptic settings on many boards there is no description at all.
If someone doesn't know what the various memory timings do then showing them where the memory slots are located on the motherboard really isn't going to help them.
Brian Dowding
November 08, 2011 at 7:04pm
It is optional - a more traditional text driven interface is still there labelled advanced mode.
Let's face it, who here doesn't know someone that thinks they are great with a PC and can't visually identify RAM... This would help that person.
Brian Dowding
November 08, 2011 at 11:22am
I can't see pure techs liking this, save for those of us who like to see innovation that can help increase the number of people we can count among our ranks.
Enthusiasts who are not yet thoroughly versed can stand to benefit from this. Just as Windows was a graphical shell to make using the computer more accessable to those who can't yet code, the interface Gigabyte is proposing here can stand to be an accessable shell that can also educate those striving to become tech savvy.
We have the technology and capapbilities to spare - I say bring it on and welcome it. Did we really expect to only need 64K forever? (Some will know what I am alluding to, and it isn't BIOS footprints).
iheartpcs
November 08, 2011 at 11:00am
I find this a little silly. Most users NEVER go into the BIOS. Mostly it's just techs or power users who access BIOS. As a PC Support Specialist, I would prefer the BIOS to be simple and efficient. Like it has been for decades.
Neufeldt2002
November 08, 2011 at 10:33am
"The basic idea is to make BIOS far more graphical, far more intuitive, and easier to access for entry-level and mainstream users than ever before,"
The problem with this is that the main stream or novice user really has no clue what these settings do, and more often than not do damage to their system because there is usually no manual that explains the features properly and in simple english*.
*Insert language of choice.
MastaGuy
November 08, 2011 at 12:02pm
But it's not like anyone is going to buy this without knowing what a motherboard is.
Novice users won't buy this because they don't even know what a BIOS is
