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PIMX Official support thread

Started by wouanagaine, November 04, 2009, 12:56:55 PM

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ncamferdam

I'm having an issue that I've seen mentioned a few times before, but I've never been able to find a fix. I've been using PIM-X for a while now, and never encountered any problems. Recently though, I've been opening up the Lot Editor, and the LE Tools window is missing. As a result, there's no way to really use the LE. Uninstalling and then re-installing fixes the problem, but within the day the TE Tools window disappears again.

I'm not sure how it's connected, but another error I've never encountered before but am now getting frequently is attached: "Couldn't add an image to the image list". The python script will run continuously and then seemingly crash, resulting in this window. PIM-X overall will frequently gray out as "Not Responding". Sometimes this will result in a complete crash, sometimes not.

Does anyone have any experience with this suite of problems? The most pressing one for me is the missing LE Tools window.

BartonThinks

Quote from: ncamferdam on April 15, 2021, 11:48:34 AM
I'm having an issue that I've seen mentioned a few times before, but I've never been able to find a fix. I've been using PIM-X for a while now, and never encountered any problems. Recently though, I've been opening up the Lot Editor, and the LE Tools window is missing. As a result, there's no way to really use the LE. Uninstalling and then re-installing fixes the problem, but within the day the TE Tools window disappears again.

I'm not sure how it's connected, but another error I've never encountered before but am now getting frequently is attached: "Couldn't add an image to the image list". The python script will run continuously and then seemingly crash, resulting in this window. PIM-X overall will frequently gray out as "Not Responding". Sometimes this will result in a complete crash, sometimes not.

Does anyone have any experience with this suite of problems? The most pressing one for me is the missing LE Tools window.
I've had that issue come up before, but unfortunately I can't remember how I solved it.

Is there any chance you've been expanding the number of plugins that you're loading into PIM_X. Most of the issues that I have with the program are caused because I overload the program with too many files. If you're getting repeated issues even after uninstalling and reinstalling the program, the number of plugins you're loading could be the issue.

art128

I seem to have an issue regarding the PIMX. Whenever I try to select certain props the software throws an error like this: (Right click the pics for full size.)


In this instance I tried to move Mattb325's recently released tower props. I had the same issue when I wanted to raise Deadwood's underground mall props pieces.  These are the only two times I threw this error at me.



The errors seem to grow longer as I love the mouse about. If I stay perfectly still it doesn't show more.

I have all the DLL in the PIMX folder, which is in the default location at C:\Program Files (x86)\SC4PIM
As for MS Visual C++ I have the following installed on my computer:



I have patched PIMX executable with the 4Gb Patch.


I'm running all of this on a Laptop with the following specs:

Windows 10 up to date
Ryzen 5 5600H
16GB DDR4 3200MHz
Nvidia RTX 3060 (and Radeon chip as well)

I don't think it did this issue on my previous computer which only had one dedicated GPU.

It's not a blocking issue as much, I can just not move the props, but I'd still like to know why.
Any ideas welcomed. :)
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

Tyberius06

Art,

I've never seen this issue, but a few things which came into my mind.
Are you running the PIM-X in any kind of compatibility mode
For example WIN-XP SP3 or WIN 7 SP1?
Also it is good if you run it in Admin Mode or as Admin (same menu where you would set the compatibility up).
The other thing, you mentioned that you have the DLLs in your PIM-X folder, while as far as I know the NET freme Windows DLLs should go into the Windows\System32 and/or SysWOW64 folders, which are sometimes hidden system folders (not always, maybe they were hidden under WIN7). Probably if you want to copy there anything the windows start complaining, but you can overrule that as Admin.

Try these, maybe it helps.

- Tyberius
You may find updates about my ongoing projects into my development thread here at SimCity 4 Devotion: Tyberius Lotting Experiments
or over there on Simtropolis into the Tyberius (Heretic Projects) Lotting and Modding Experiments.
I'm also member of the STEX Custodian and working on different restoration projects on behalf of non-anymore-active custom content creators.
Current projects: WMP Restoration and SimCity Polska Restoration.
Member of the NAM Team and RTMT Team.

BartonThinks

#524
Hey art128. So, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff, but I have a theory about what's going wrong here.

In the error window, the core error before you run into a series of stack overflow errors is "global name glutStrokeCharacter' is not defined." I'm not smart enough to know what a glutStrokeCharacter is, but from what I could find, it's used to render text at specific coordinates:

https://www.opengl.org/resources/libraries/glut/spec3/node78.html

The props you're trying to move on Matt's lot are already raised, and you said that the problem also occurred when trying to raise Deadwoods' sunken mall props. When props and other elements are raised in PIM-X, a number appears next to the element telling you the elevation.  I would assume that this number is rendered using glutStrokeCharacter, and that one or more of the following is happening:


  • Whichever file or process the program uses to plot the coordinates of objects within the Lot Editor is missing or corrupted (seems unlikely, since the objects are located at the correct coordinates to start)
  • Whichever file or process the program uses to plot where the glutStrokeCharacter appears on screen is missing or corrupted
  • Whichever file or process the program uses to define the glutStrokeCharacter font is missing or corrupted
  • The actual font files used for the glutStrokeCharacter are missing or corrupted

I'm not sure if that gets you any closer to solving the problem or if I'm completely off-base. I don't know how to open any of the PYD files that come with PIM-X (figured Python would work, but no luck), so I wasn't able to check those files to see if I could identify which file (if any) is the likely source of the problem. However, I might give the following a try:


  • Double-check that the correct DLL files are in place (sounds like they are)
  • Check whether the New Properties XML files are installed. If not, see if installing those work.
  • Try running the compatibility troubleshooter and see if you can get the program to work in compatibility mode
  • Attempt a fresh install of PIM-X in a new location and check whether any of the files it installs are missing from your folder
  • Failing that, uninstall PIM-X and attempt a fresh install to see if that fixes the issue.

art128

Tibi, as per the first page of this thread, the DLL should be put in the software's directory. I wasn't running the PIMX originally in compatibility mod but I tried it in both 7 and XP and it didn't help. Same for admin mode.

Barton, I tried everything you mentioned, still get the error.  Any idea how to check for the missing or corrupted font?
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

Tyberius06

Quote from: art128 on July 15, 2021, 11:59:14 AM
Tibi, as per the first page of this thread, the DLL should be put in the software's directory. I wasn't running the PIMX originally in compatibility mod but I tried it in both 7 and XP and it didn't help. Same for admin mode.

Barton, I tried everything you mentioned, still get the error.  Any idea how to check for the missing or corrupted font?

Hm... I don't know, Art.
I don't remember if I've ever put those DLLs into the PIM-X folder (though found two of them, which is strange, but there are like 3-4 DLLs actually what I usually put into the WIN System to support PIM-X), I've always put them into the Windows System and everything have been working fine for me. Whenever after a new install PIM-X was missing a DLL I downloaded and put it into those two Windows Sys folders and that solved my issues.
You may find updates about my ongoing projects into my development thread here at SimCity 4 Devotion: Tyberius Lotting Experiments
or over there on Simtropolis into the Tyberius (Heretic Projects) Lotting and Modding Experiments.
I'm also member of the STEX Custodian and working on different restoration projects on behalf of non-anymore-active custom content creators.
Current projects: WMP Restoration and SimCity Polska Restoration.
Member of the NAM Team and RTMT Team.

BartonThinks

#527
Quote from: art128 on July 15, 2021, 11:59:14 AM
Tibi, as per the first page of this thread, the DLL should be put in the software's directory. I wasn't running the PIMX originally in compatibility mod but I tried it in both 7 and XP and it didn't help. Same for admin mode.

Barton, I tried everything you mentioned, still get the error.  Any idea how to check for the missing or corrupted font?

Okay, so I had a long post written out about how perplexed I was and all the theories I had that didn't pan out -- I did a bunch of Googling, ran a bunch of tests, tried replicating the error using a bunch of PIM-X configurations, and still couldn't figure out the problem.

But then this happened...



...so this post is going to be a lot shorter.  :)

The error seems to occur when the glut32.dll file is missing. Note that it's glut32.dll, with a "t," as opposed to glu32.dll.

I was able to run the lot editor and raise props with each of the other three dll files missing. The error only occurred when glut32.dll was removed from the folder.

Hopefully that sorts out which file is missing/corrupted.

(If it helps at all, I have the dll files in the SC4PIM folder, so I don't think you need to worry about their location.)

art128

Very interesting find. Thanks to you I was able to solve the issue after re-downloading the glut32.dll file. I would not have thought about downloading the DLL again..

Interestingly, on the DLL site, there are two versions, one 32bit and one 64bit which have a different size. (96.2Kb vs 75Kb respectively)
The PIMX would throw an error when using the 64bit file while it would work perfectly while using the 32bit file.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

mgb204

Two things to note about such libraries.

1st, use of a 32-bit or 64-bit variant is not based on your OS, rather what the application was designed with. So yeah, trying to use 64-bit libraries for 32-bit apps is probably not going to work.

2nd, the purpose of DLLs, was to provide a system where users didn't need to have multiple versions of the same files, to run different apps. So whilst Tibi is quite correct, installing the proper packages which originally contained the DLLs, will put them in system folders where every application can see/use them is generally preferred. It is also possible to place them directly in the Applications install folder, if they exist there any system-wide versions will not be used. This allows you to run a different version of a given library should a specific application require this for compatibility reasons.

One major problem with all this, people just download the standalone DLL files, but that's really not the ideal method, instead you should install the full APIs, such as the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime and OpenGL. For example, with my current system I don't even need to install anything to run PIM-X or similar apps, because everything they rely on get's installed as part of my system's driver/app installations anyway. Of course, it's not obvious either to the average user which package contains which .DLLs and frankly the whole issue comes down to MS trying to monetise these libraries at the expense of a system that simply distributed them with apps. A system they have since learned was flawed and pointless, so now works more like it should.

As for opening the PYD files with Python, you are right that PIM-X was programmed using Python, but you can't open pre-compiled code like this, rather you need the original source code. But good sleuthing to find the cause, your Google-fu is strong BartonThinks.

BartonThinks

#530
Glad this got fixed!

FWIW, one of the theories I had was that DLL files were mismatched to the program architecture, so I tried running the program with both 32-bit or 64-bit versions of the files. In both cases, it seemed to work just fine on my machine, so I didn't think that would be an issue.

MudPuppy

First, thanks to everyone that continues working for others to enjoy this game. 
I installed SC4PIMx on my Windows 10 64 bit laptop.  I made sure that the 3 dlls listed at the start of this thread (32 bit versions) are in the program folder.(They're also in my System32 folder.)
I read the PDF and followed it to create a growable lot and a plopable lot. (They're not pretty but they work. Pretty can come later.)

The next thing I wanted to learn was modifying an existing lot. I noticed (when DAMNing) my DL of 'SM2 Railway Bits.dat' had one exemplar (SM2 Railways Ballast Depot) that had no base or overlay textures. Adding base textures seemed like a good way to learn to mod an existing lot. 

That's when I realized that none of my plugins, dats or Lots, were loading with PIMx.
The simcity dats load but if I select just my plugins folder on opening, I get a big empty except for some of my early modding efforts and the game's standard models.

I tried 'unhiding' it in DAMN but still nothing.
How do I get my plugins to load in PIMx?

Andreas

PIM-X won't load files that are in \SimCity 4\Plugins, but not in a subfolder. I think this was done as a "security measurment", since loading the entire plugins folder might take a lot of time (and memory). Hence you need to select the subfolder(s) with the file(s) that you want to modify after opening PIM-X first, and then pick the desired item from the list on the left side.
Andreas

MudPuppy

Thanks for the prompt reply.  As you explained, I moved 'SM2 Railway Bits.dat' to the top level of my Plug Ins folder, it appeared in PIMx and now the 'Ballast" lot has base textures.  Thanks for your help.

daftpunk03

Hi, recently came back to the game after many years and got into PIM-X and I have kind of a dumb question but couldn't find the answer in the user guide or forums.
In the LE-X when you click the "toggle on top" button, how do you bring the LE Tool window back? When I click it, it disappears, it doesn't minimize to top corner or something like that.

mgb204

The one switch toggles both ways, it either brings the LE Tools into focus, or when clicked again it brings the Lot Editor into focus.

daftpunk03

Damn im dumb lol thank you for the quick response! Love to see that people are still active and helping the community after so many years  :)

TheKillerChicken

Hi, first time poster here. I am curious, how many plugins can this program handle? I seem to be having an out of memory issue during loading even though I have a program which forces 32 bit programs under 1-4GB memory. Thanks.

ASV7900

I'm running about 1.8GB worth of plug-ins currently. Still testing the stability of things, since there's CAM + NAM + all the cool stuff I've downloaded from LEX.

JahnSpd

I've been curious, how come for some props (like the LRM streetlights) show up as red boxes on the lot editor, while others don't?



I know it happens with missing models, but I selected the whole LRM folder, so they should be loaded.