Yes, real-time decoding on a desktop is just nice-to-have, with a couple of exceptions
(1) if your decoder software runs too slow for real-time decoding. I think it historically has happened every once in a while until CPUs and decoder optimizations catch up again. Eg 4k H.265 was too much for many desktops for a while.
(2) you do a lot of it, in which low power decoding->saving electricity is still good
eg Linux web browsers for ages had sw-only decoding at it worked mostly fine, just laptops having battery eaten in browser apps & electron based apps (videoconferencing).
As codecs are historically a top source of remote code execution vulnerabilities that get our device pwned, the poor sandboxability of hw decoders makes them a security problem as well. eg as a pathway to exploit the flaky and high-privileged GPU driver code paths.
(1) if your decoder software runs too slow for real-time decoding. I think it historically has happened every once in a while until CPUs and decoder optimizations catch up again. Eg 4k H.265 was too much for many desktops for a while.
(2) you do a lot of it, in which low power decoding->saving electricity is still good
eg Linux web browsers for ages had sw-only decoding at it worked mostly fine, just laptops having battery eaten in browser apps & electron based apps (videoconferencing).
As codecs are historically a top source of remote code execution vulnerabilities that get our device pwned, the poor sandboxability of hw decoders makes them a security problem as well. eg as a pathway to exploit the flaky and high-privileged GPU driver code paths.