The plugin likely wraps standard open-source decoding libraries (such as FFmpeg or LibAV) into a proprietary interface. By forcing software decoding over hardware decoding, it can sometimes provide better handling of corrupted files or niche codecs (like older AVI containers) that modern GPU decoders fail to parse.
: While PLAYit is great for streaming, the SW decoder truly shines when playing large, high-bitrate files saved directly to your device. sw decoder plugin 3m playit better
Counter-intuitively, a well-coded 3M decoder uses SIMD instructions (AVX2/SSE4.2) to decode audio in batches. Users report PlayIt’s CPU load dropping from 12% to ~4% on a 192kHz stream. sw decoder plugin 3m playit better