Low Shader Settings Missing Skybox Patch (OBSOLETE)

As of update 2228 on August 22nd 2023, this addon/patch has been rendered obsolete. Thank you for your support! You no longer need this mod if you use low shader settings.

Old Description:

A long time ago I discovered the cause as to why the skybox disappears when you set shader settings to Low. With The Last Stand update this issue remains unpatched, so this tiny addon is still applicable and highly recommended for low-end users.

Users that can afford Medium or higher in their shader settings should not subscribe as this will increase load times with no conferred benefit.

Explanation:

There is an internal value stored within L4D2 called "GPU" that changes depending on what your current graphic settings are. When this value drops to 1 or lower, certain lines of code will execute in VMTs, some referencing textures that do not exist. This addon deletes the lines of code within the guilty VMTs in the materials/skybox directory, thus fixing the issue of missing skyboxes.

The only skyboxes affected by this issue and replaced as a result, are skyboxes found in the following campaigns: Dead Center, The Passing, Dark Carnival, Swamp Fever, Hard Rain, and The Parish.

Side notes:

• This will fix the missing texture reflection for the Realtime Reflective Water addon.
• This will fix missing skyboxes on custom campaigns that do not utilize proper fog entities while using a vanilla skybox.
• This does offer a minor FPS boost from my own testing, probably because it prevents the game from rendering fog over empty VRAM. (Using the last frame rendered to fill in a void where nothing is instructed to be rendered.)
• This addon is not compatible with addons that replace L4D2 skybox VMTs.
• Online Versus disables all addons. This cannot be used in Versus mode.

Enjoy,