firmware; Wtf?

Post by **TezzRexx** » June 25th, 2005, 19:12

Hi guys, I've having a little trouble running some of my EA DVD's, namely, "Lord of the rings; battle for middle earth" and "Beef2". What happens is, I put the DVD in the drive, it clicks for about 10 minutes, and then runs fine, but this pisses me off the fact I have to wait ages, just to play the game.

I looked around everywhere for new drivers, but all I found was firmwire. Now, I'm not familar with firmware what so ever, so I'm not too keen on using it if I know fuck all about it. So, does anyone know, what the hell it is and how to use it?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » June 25th, 2005, 19:24

Firmware
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In computing, firmware is software that is embedded in a hardware device. Often it is provided in flash ROMs and can be updated by an end user.

Examples of firmware include:

* the BIOS found in personal computers,
* Open Firmware, used in Apple Macintosh computers,
* the computer program in a read-only memory (ROM) integrated circuit (A hardware configuration is usually used to represent the software.),
* the erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) chip, whose program may be modified by special external hardware, but not by an application program.

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and from MIL-STD-188

Unauthorised modified firmware is sometimes used to provide functionality not intended by the manufacturer, for example to defeat the region encoding of DVD players.

Post by **TezzRexx** » June 25th, 2005, 19:35

Cheers berk, now I'll I need to know is how I can start fucking up my DVD drive!

Post by **deject** » June 25th, 2005, 19:37

Firmware acts as the intermediar beween the physical hardware, and the drivers in your system. Upgrading a drive's firmware can solve problems and add functionality to the drive. A lot of media players can be upgraded to support new formats by updating the firmware.

The tricky part is if anything goes wrong (i.e.: corrupt data, a bad floppy drive, or the wrong firmware for the device), your drive/motherboard/video card/whatever may be foobar and totally useless. Whenever I update the firmware on a mobo, I cringe in fear, especially if I'm doing it from a bootable floppy. The good news is most drives and video cards can have the firmware upgraded either from in Windows or done during a reboot without needing a boot floppy or CD.

The bottom line: You potentially can ruin your hardware, but new firmware can solve a lot of problems and add new features. I generally recommend doing an upgrade.

Post by **TezzRexx** » June 25th, 2005, 19:42

It won't fuck up anything else will it? only the DVD drive right??

I really don't wanna fuck up my mobo or anythink like that..

Post by **deject** » June 25th, 2005, 19:44

nah, you can only fuck up whatever you're working on. the big thing is to make sure you're using the correct upgrade for your drive. Using the wrong one will basically kill the drive. but when you can buy a 8x Dual-Layer drive for $50, I say upgrade away!

Post by **TezzRexx** » June 25th, 2005, 19:45

Sweet, cheers for the advise, I'll have a look around for the firmwire suitable for my drive. I just checked on scan, they have drives as cheap as £15 there.. :D

Post by **TezzRexx** » June 25th, 2005, 21:28

W00! I R UPDATED IT, AND IT WORKED!

Both BF2 and lotr; bfme work fine now!! :DD

begin fwap tiem!

Post by **deject** » June 25th, 2005, 23:43

awroit! Usually it works right, but there's always that 5% chance that it fucks up. WOO!