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PIMX Official support thread

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

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mgb204

Every lot MUST have a Buildings Exemplar, because it's this file that contains all the properties of the building. However, some modders prefer to make the main building a Prop instead, so it may look like you don't have a model, but there is something important you need to understand about this relationship.

A Buildings Exemplar links to a model, even if that model is invisible and doesn't appear, it's there. But this model is NOT the Buildings Exemplar, it's just a model and you don't need it to adjust the buildings exemplar. So rather than looking at the Prop Exemplar, which has no such properties, you need to open the Buildings Exemplar for these lots to make changes. If you can find the Lots, right click the open properties (Bottom Right pane), and there is an option to open the associated Buildings Exemplar for a lot. If that's missing or not working, you've probably not loaded these exemplars when starting SC4 PIM. Usually those will be inside either a DAT or SC4Desc file.

inkrender

AHHHH! I think I'm getting it! but first i'm sorry if I have not replied yesterday. I was pondering on fantozzi's reply intensely and was also quite frustrated on working in pim-x, so i needed time to refresh myself.

So, just today, I downloaded a file with the same problem I'm having yesterday. I went back to this post and saw mgb204's reply, and a realization came into my mind which cleared things up. Also prior to this, I remember I saw a thread about Creating Mega Lots (I just skimmed through it) but I think it has a connection to the problem I'm having

Correct me if I'm wrong. So how I understand this is, modders who make lots with multiple buildings in it, uses this method of using the building as a prop, and then making use of the LOD box for the building exemplar to be generated, since you can only have one building exemplar per lot(?)

Quote from: fantozzi on October 08, 2018, 10:46:48 PM
First a hint: the development curve of the standard game and the colossus addon mod for the first grow stages 1-3 are almost identical, so normally there is no need to adjust RCI for those. One could say - the higher the capacity/bigger size the building is the more important is to adjust the stats for CAM.

Then I would like to ask help, for future. :)  If ever I encounter a custom content with a high capacity but without an LOD box,

Quote from: mgb204 on October 09, 2018, 08:46:02 AM
...you need to open the Buildings Exemplar for these lots to make changes. If you can find the Lots, right click the open properties (Bottom Right pane), and there is an option to open the associated Buildings Exemplar for a lot...

I did, so what i need to do then next is recompute, right? but I can't recompute without the LOD box.

so...

Quote from: fantozzi on October 08, 2018, 10:46:48 PM
So, if you want to calculate the capacity of the building the right way the LOD needs proper dimensions and the best way to manipulate occupant capacities of buildings is indeed to manipulate the size of the LOD...

...To change the dimensions of the LOD I use ilive's Reader.

Can you please provide any link to tutorials that I could use to change the dimensions of the LOD in Ilive?

mgb204

I'm with you on the problem re: LODs and the Capacity/Growth Stage values. Every object has a LOD, it's just that for invisible models, that LOD is not going to correctly represent the actual buildings size, thus the automatic values simply won't be right. In general, for such lots you are going to have to manually input these values yourself, since there is no data for SC4-PIM to do it for you.

There are some potentially easier methods however, for example, let's say you have four identically sized buildings upon a lot. Take the model and make a new Building with it, note the intent is not to edit the existing lot, but to make a temporary one to get some data. PIM-X will be able to give you a capacity from the filling degree for this model which should be accurate. You'd then times that by four, to get the right capacity. The growth stage is more complex and you simply aren't going to be able to do that automatically. But, if you understand  the CAM growth stages, that shouldn't be too hard to get in roughly the right area. You can always tweak things if they aren't working out later. Of course not all multi-building lots are so neat, some may be of varying sizes. In such cases you could make one Buildings Exemplar for each different size, then total up the values from there. Sometimes though, you can see a building is say 60% of the size of another, so it can be done with less effort if you can eyeball things.

When you first make a Buildings Exemplar with SC4-PIM, it creates an .SC4Desc file in the root of your Plugins folder. Just be sure to move/delete these temporary files when you are done.

c.p.

You don't need to mess around with LODs at all.  Just enter new dimensions in the "occupant size" property (in PIM-X), then recalculate.

As far as the old CP residential lots you mentioned, those are already campatible.  For residential lots below stage 7, the capacities, stages, etc. are the same with standard Rush Hour and CAM.  Neither the game or CAM cares whether the building has a "filling degree" or not.  That property is only for PIM-X purposes.

fantozzi

#464
Quote from: inkrender on October 09, 2018, 09:06:40 PM
Can you please provide any link to tutorials that I could use to change the dimensions of the LOD in Ilive?

Well if you are new to Reader go with Cycledogg (post above) first, as you can stay on PIM-X so it's easier. When I was talking about the LOD, I tried to explain the whole thing a bit but Cycledogg is right to make a difference between LOD and "occupant size". The occupant size is the data retrieved from the LOD and can be changed, the LOD is related to the model file itself.

So not to confuse you - we are talking about the "occupant size". This is the key data PIM-X uses to calculate the stats. Still that are the dimensions of the yellow box you see in PIM-X. And those you want to change to a believable dimension.

inkrender

#465
Aaaaaahh!  &idea I'm getting it now. (not the whole PIM-X but at least these parts that i'm having problems now)

Thank you mgb204 for the technique. I'll remember that.

c.p. Thank you for the info about "occupant size". (And thank you for these lots they're great for my suburban themed cities  ;D)

fantozzi on second thought, maybe I'd rather not mess with the reader for now since I'm not yet well educated on modding aynways.  :D
But the three of you sirs gave me a valuable information, and knowledge regarding on LOD, PIM-X and CAM.

(Correct me if I'm wrong) So, what I got from all of these:

  • The PIM-X is not built for CAM. But it only has this formula that makes it easier to create data of lots fitting for CAM.
  • The LOD box is just there because of the BAT model created, which can be used in PIM-X to calculate "occupant size" (by the filling degree feature). But is not so important if ever there is none and continue to manually input the "occupant size" as long as I know the stage growth of CAM.
  • The "occupant size" property is all that matters. As long as I input the appropriate occupant sizes, everything else will follow when I recompute it.

mgb204

PIM-X was designed to work with CAM from the outset. The filling degree does not have to be used to make CAM lots, it's just a good automated system to calculate consistent values for custom content. Something which was all over the place before PIM-X came along.

The LOD is actually the 3D model of an in-game object, its absolutely necessary. This LOD contains the entirety of the texture, anything not inside it, may simply fail to appear correctly, since the textures of a model need to Map to the LOD. The default occupant size of any model, be it a Prop, Building or whatever, is always the LOD size. You can't adjust the LOD, but you can alter the occupant size, there are certain benefits to doing so.

If the model you are using is being used as a building, the LOD/Occupant sizes should be identical, unless someones edited them. But, if the model used for the building is an invisible one, even if the occupant size matches the LOD, the LOD of such an object will not match the model you want statistics for. In which case manually entering the correct occupant size and filling degree will compensate for this.

fantozzi

#467
Quote from: inkrender on October 10, 2018, 08:41:29 PM
(Correct me if I'm wrong) So, what I got from all of these:

  • The PIM-X is not built for CAM. But it only has this formula that makes it easier to create data of lots fitting for CAM.
  • The LOD box is just there because of the BAT model created, which can be used in PIM-X to calculate "occupant size" (by the filling degree feature). But is not so important if ever there is none and continue to manually input the "occupant size" as long as I know the stage growth of CAM.
  • The "occupant size" property is all that matters. As long as I input the appropriate occupant sizes, everything else will follow when I recompute it.

:thumbsup:

Except:

PIM-X was built with CAM 1.0 in mind but not exclusively CAM. The more important thing: today it is used as a defacto standard by modders to calculate stats. That's the more important thing because if all bats follow the same standard it will work, only if you calculate different bats with different methods you would get an imbalanced game, where one lot grows more often than others. To have the lots balanced you need a neutral algorithm calculating them all the same way - that is the merit of PIM-X, giving this algorithm instead you do it by estimation.

The algorithm could give 20 sims more or 20 sims less as a result - that doesn't matter. The more important thing is, when we share our creations, we use the same algorithm to calculate. This fact - above all - makes it work perfectly.

CAM 2.1 came after PIM-X and a few new features of CAM 2.1 aren't covered by PIM-X, but for now you shouldn't worry about that.

Occupant size is the virtual volume, the space being occupied in Depth x Height x With - the filling degree is something different. Filling degree isn't a property in SC4 and to my knowledge is only a feature of PIM-X to change density.

On filling degree you may read here (also the links given):

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=10777.0

BTW - not long ago I had those questions too, here:

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/70759-need-more-knowledge-grow-stages/

vortext

#468
Quote from: inkrender on October 10, 2018, 08:41:29 PM
The LOD box is just there because of the BAT model created, which can be used in PIM-X to calculate "occupant size" (by the filling degree feature).  [...]

Not quite. As MGB said, the occupant size is derived from the LOD, and typically corresponds 1:1 to it. The filling degree was introduced to combat the issue that the LOD, and in turn the occupant size, does not always correspond well to the actual building dimensions. Say for example there's a factory model with a really tall chimney. This tall chimney will cause the LOD / occupant size to be very tall as well generating a lot of 'empty' space, and thereby skewing the statistics. Hence in such cases the filling degree should be lowered to properly reflect, as fantozzi put it, the virtual volume inside the LOD which is actually taken up by the model. 

Quote from: inkrender on October 10, 2018, 08:41:29 PM
[...] But is not so important if ever there is none and continue to manually input the "occupant size" as long as I know the stage growth of CAM.

Again things are not quite as straightforward, as the growth stage is determined by the size of the lot. Given the same building, larger lot sizes will have lower growth stages. And in turn, the minimal lot size is determined by the occupant size. Hence it's not a good idea to just use the occupant size to determine statistics, as it will also determine the minimal lot dimensions, which in turn determines the minimal growth stage. However there's a far more pernicious issue lurking when you change the occupant size of a building after a lot has already been created: 

When the occupant size of the building exemplar goes out of bounds relative to the lot it is on, it will cause issues with adjacent lots, potentially leading to immortal lot syndrome!

Say for example a 1x1 lot (i.e. 16x16 meter) was initially created with a building with an occupant size of 8x8 meter, and the building was placed at the center. Now, if you change the occupant size to 20x20 meters after the fact the occupant size will be out of bounds, obviously, and the building will 'overhang' into adjacent lots. But it can get more intricate; say the 8x8 building was placed in a corner of a lot, and then the occupant size was changed to 12x12 meter. Technically this still fits within the lot dimensions, however, since it is placed in the corner it does in fact overhang as well!

Now here's the real the kicker: SC4PIM will let you do this without any warning whatsoever. Moreover the building outline in the LE does not update to reflect the changed occupant size! So everything will look fine and dandy, and everything will function properly ingame too, however, I can positively assure you this will cause issues ingame, either when you bulldoze the lot and/or the adjacent lots into which the building overhangs, or when lots are grown / plopped next to it. 

Quote from: inkrender on October 10, 2018, 08:41:29 PM
The "occupant size" property is all that matters. As long as I input the appropriate occupant sizes, everything else will follow when I recompute it.

So by now it should come as no surprise I'd strongly advice against exclusively using the occupant size for statistics, especially once the lot has already been created. The latter is a surefire way to end up with immortal lots in your cities. And in fact the filling degree was introduced as a means of sidestepping the occupant size, exactly because the unwanted side effects ingame. Immortal lot syndrome used to be a real pita until people figured out what was causing it. 

Quite a wall of text, so to summarise: leave the occupant size alone as much as possible and use the filling degree to adjust statistics. It was introduced for good reasons and there's no good reason not to use it. And besides it's just easier to tinker with 1 number as opposed to 3!   :)
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

c.p.

Quote from: vortext on October 11, 2018, 05:31:34 AM
When the occupant size of the building exemplar goes out of bounds relative to the lot it is on, it will cause issues with adjacent lots, potentially leading to immortal lot syndrome!

Good catch! I forgot about that.

Simmer2

I would like to add something more regarding occupant size of props (not building exemplars) to avoid any confusions.

Modders that use XPim will know that the building exemplar shows in blue and anything else (props can be actual buildings too) will show in yellow.

Props (yellow box) occupant sizes can be manipulated (actually it is a must when creating overhanging objects and for centering purpose) and they will not cause the immortal lot syndrome.

Simmer2/Nick
________________________________________________________________________________

inkrender

Wow.

I'm learning a lot. It is good I got knowledge about the occupancy and the immortal lots.
I've read fantozzi's links yesterday, and studied about the balance of the lots imported in game. Not completely, but I'm getting there.
I've been playing the game for just about only 1 month, and the way I learn things are just speculations. Which I know isn't enough. Good thing I started reading topics in forums halfway.

So... I'm seeing there's 3 topics on this topic. Occupant Size, Immortal Lot, and on my earlier post that I want to get back to a little more.

For the occupant size...
How I'm understanding this now is, these three are related to each other, and on what value I input on occupant size, PIM-X calculates it that makes the model to be balanced in the game?
So like there's a cycle? I don't know why I'm thinking like this, but it helps me understand something. r.i.p.
Maybe I mean like, for adjusting a picture's size for example, the aspect ratio? like that? Changing the values for Occupant Size will also change Lot size and Stage Growth? And should be fixed? and if I only adjust one side, the picture would get distorted?

           Occupant size
             /             \
   Lot size    __  Growth Stage

For the immortal lot, thank you everyone for educating me about this, it seems like one of those Commuter Loops everyone is afraid about, including me of course.  &mmm
But there's like an ingame solution for this right? I think I saw an immortal-lot-exterminator something on either LEX or STEX? I'm not saying I'm depending on that though, but it gives me less worry thinking there's a solution.

And for my earlier post which is already solved but...
On my earlier post... A model wasn't CAMpatible and only uses a Building as a Prop.

Quote from: inkrender on October 08, 2018, 09:34:07 PM

As you can see on the attachments, I only have LotConfig, Prop and a blank building(?)[...]


But what if for example:
The same problem as above but it's higher than Stage 7?? And I want to adjust values to make it CAMpatible?

I can't use the filler degree. There's no model.
I can't just manually input a value in Occupant Size since it may not correspond to building dimensions. And might cause Immortal Lot.

Could I use the prop as a model?

fantozzi

#472
Quote from: inkrender on October 12, 2018, 12:08:25 AM
For the occupant size...
How I'm understanding this now is, these three are related to each other, and on what value I input on occupant size, PIM-X calculates it that makes the model to be balanced in the game?
So like there's a cycle? I don't know why I'm thinking like this, but it helps me understand something. r.i.p.
Maybe I mean like, for adjusting a picture's size for example, the aspect ratio? like that? Changing the values for Occupant Size will also change Lot size and Stage Growth? And should be fixed? and if I only adjust one side, the picture would get distorted?

           Occupant size
             /             \
   Lot size    __  Growth Stage

For the immortal lot, thank you everyone for educating me about this, it seems like one of those Commuter Loops everyone is afraid about, including me of course.  &mmm
But there's like an ingame solution for this right? I think I saw an immortal-lot-exterminator something on either LEX or STEX? I'm not saying I'm depending on that though, but it gives me less worry thinking there's a solution.

And for my earlier post which is already solved but...
On my earlier post... A model wasn't CAMpatible and only uses a Building as a Prop.

Quote from: inkrender on October 08, 2018, 09:34:07 PM

As you can see on the attachments, I only have LotConfig, Prop and a blank building(?)[...]


But what if for example:
The same problem as above but it's higher than Stage 7?? And I want to adjust values to make it CAMpatible?

I can't use the filler degree. There's no model.
I can't just manually input a value in Occupant Size since it may not correspond to building dimensions. And might cause Immortal Lot.

Could I use the prop as a model?

Yes, indeed you get much information, me I'm slack, like to experiment, not taking things too serious and I recommend you to do the same. But the other posters here are absolutely correct to point out the many things to consider. All this is important, yes.

Now rgb205 explained that very precise -basically there is a model, it is only invisible, wearing no textures and being transparent and also of tiny size.

Now PIM-X needs a volume to calculate everything for you - how many people working/linving there, water and current. Therefore is the box - this box describes the space that can be populated - again - in Depth x Height x Width in meters. Now it's good to know one tile of the lot is 16x16 meters. Now if your lot is 1x1 tile and you change the occupant size to 20x80x20 (imagine this would be a small tower, yes?) this virtual living-space you've created would extend the size of the lot. So what vortex described could happen. So maybe to stay with 15,9x80x15,9 instead.

So the size of the living space, the occupant size can't extend the size of the lot. But this sounds quite logic, doesn't it? You can't use more space for living then there is on earth.

There we are talking about Depths and Width.

So in your circle the error is - lot size is an independend value, not tied to the model and the description of the midel. As you have two separated files in SC4. There is the desc-file that describes the building and the lot-file that describes the lot. And in the lot-files there's a link to the desc-file. So the building is linked to the lot by the lot-file. Sounds funny first, but it means something: you open the lot and change the building, but you can't open the building to change the lot underneath. It's a hierarchy.

That is the reason why PIM-X needs both files, a building-description and a lot-description to calculate.

And that's maybe the complicated part. There is a third value, that is density. Densitiy is the value where the occupant size and the size of the lot comes in relation, where they count both, how they fit together. On one hand it is the yellow box you fill with people on the other hand population density is measured per tile - how many poeple can live on a tile. So you have a lot of size of 1x1 tiles, which means 16x16 meters. now you change the yellow box to 15x15x15 meters, so maybe 4 or 5 sims can enter this box - so density is 4 or 5 sims per 16 square meters. But now you change the yellow box to a size of 15x100x15 meters. Still the box fits the single tile, Depth is 15 meters and Width is 15 meters but now it is 100 meters high. Now you let PIM-X calculate again. It will tell you there can enter maybe 90 Sims inside of the box now. So you have different densitiy on the lot, now its 90 sims on 16 square meters. That's how the occupant size and the lot size together form densitiy.

Now - the density is the key value for the grow stage. You could test that by changing the filling degree from low to dense. At a certain point PIM-X will suggest a lower grow stage or a higher grow stage for always the same lot - because what you change is the population density per tile.

Therefore it isn't only how big the lot is and it isn't only how big the building (its occupant size) is, but how they mix with each other - the lot size and the occupant size, that make up grow stage. A lot with 8x8 tiles of size can be the same grow stage 8 like a lot with 1x1 tile size as it depends on the density. You can increase density by making the yellow box higher and you can do it by changing the filling degree. Because it is the lot size at the end, that gives the benchmark for density.

So that may be the point to understand so you can understand the debate you've gotten into.

On this:
Quote"I can't just manually input a value in Occupant Size since it may not correspond to building dimensions. And might cause Immortal Lot."

No. It mustn't correspond the buildings dimensions but it should exceed the lots dimensions. Also: you see the building as a prop in your game, so you can estimate the dimensions it should have, you could count the stories and so on. Most of all: you shouldn't be afraid to make your own experiences. Most of our knowledge came up this way - by trial and error by experimenting with those elements, fooling around with the dials and knobs. It's a game, not the knob to launch the atomic bomb. If you break something, you just reset. Or redownload and reinstall it. After a while you will be secure in doing those operations. Like car driving. In the beginning it seems complicated to change gear and watch the street and hold the steering wheel all at once - but one gets used to it. All they become experienced drivers. They only tend to forget how it was when they started.

But we all started the same, by experimenting with those tools and see if we can ruin the game with modding.  $%Grinno$%

So you are right, first you need a proper yellow box for PIM-X to do its calculating magic. The box shouldn't extend the size of the lot and it should roughly fit the volume of the building that is visible on the lot.

The rest ... just play around, also with the filling degree. See what happens. Why not? You won't get arrested by community officials.

At least I think so?  ???

QuoteCould I use the prop as a model?

No. Wrong question? Maybe you mean to use the prop as a building? You can do that but that's another thing.

I try to explain the shortest way to achieve what you want. Make your stuff CAM-patible. To change props to buildings and buildings to props - let's do this later.

This is not necessary for what you want to do now.

inkrender

alright ;D
Sorry for the last part, yeah i meant. use the prop as the building. I was trying to edit it but i can't awhile ago.
Anyways
You're right, I should get my hands dirty on this.
It's just that I want to try and learn things in a discussion type but it looks like i'm not doing well  :D . I'll change from now on.
Thank you everyone for for your help. I'll get back to this post often to re-read everything and get something. :)

fantozzi

Quote from: inkrender on October 12, 2018, 02:07:19 AM
You're right, I should get my hands dirty on this.
It's just that I want to try and learn things in a discussion type but it looks like i'm not doing well  :D . I'll change from now on.
Thank you everyone for for your help. I'll get back to this post often to re-read everything and get something. :)

You even can do both: get your hands dirty and discuss. ;D No need to decide, no need for retention, just follow your needs. No one grades you.

mgb204

I think the easiest solution is to make the "temporary" exemplar I mentioned before. Because where Models as Props are used with an invisible building model, there are plenty of pot holes to fall into. Find the actual model itself, drag that into the correct Building category (all explained in the manual), which will then just require a filling degree and lot size to calculate the values for you. Rather than use this exemplar though, you simply note the Growth Stage and Capacity values and use them to manually adjust the existing lot. This way you'll know the values are correct, but you aren't messing with other properties that may cause problems. Having done this, discard the temporary files as you won't need them. Note however PIM-X won't allow you to update all properties, you may have to resort to Reader to do so.

QuoteI can't just manually input a value in Occupant Size since it may not correspond to building dimensions. And might cause Immortal Lot.

Actually you can safely do this just to get your values correct, provided you restore the original Occupant Size settings afterwards, there would be no problem. That might actually be easier than mucking around with temporary files, thinking about it.

QuoteI can't use the filler degree. There's no model.
QuoteCould I use the prop as a model?

It's really important to understand that an Exemplar is NOT a model. Models are not Props, Buildings or anything, just simply models. It's the Exemplar or properties file that determines how these models are both used and the properties assigned to them. Every lot consists of both a Buildings Exemplar and LotConfig Exemplar. The LotConfig contains data on the size of the lot, each item used on it and it's position, along with some other properties. The Buildings Exemplar contains the bulk of the properties for the Building though, including something called an RTK value. This simply links to a model, which is displayed where the building sits on the Lot, even if you can't see this, it's always there. Because no Building on a lot, means no Buildings Exemplar, which wouldn't work full stop. Similarly a Prop Exemplar is the same thing, it's just a bunch of properties pertaining to a model, with a link to the model to show where that Prop is placed. The key differentator here is that Buildings and Props (Exemplars) work and function very differently. The properties we are dealing with in reference to this discussion absolutely must be handled via the Buildings Exemplar / LotConfig and will NOT come from Props.

You can take one model and turn it into many different things, Buildings, Props, Flora etc, you only ever require on model, each Exemplar links to the model, but allows different usages of it. So you can make one model into 10 Buildings, each with different settings, but the model you see is identical. The Exemplars just determine how the model will be used.

So, you do have a model, but it's not the actual model you'd need for the correct settings to make use of the Filling Degree property. It will work, but the settings it produces will be way off the mark. You can't use a Prop as a Model, because a Prop is just an Exemplar, that links to a model. All that's different here is that instead of linking a model as a Building, it's been included on the lot as a Prop. The model, whichever method was employed, would be identical. I wouldn't try to think about making it into a Building, all you need are the right settings for Exemplars which can be determined by the above workarounds. It won't matter that the invisible model is there or that the size is inconsistent, or even what occupant size is set. This setting only needs to be used when generating the correct Capacity Satisfied / Growth Stage by entering the Filling Degree. Once PIM-X (or you) has done this, it will just work with values that are as if the Building Exemplar was the model on the lot. It's just not possible when using "Buildings as Props", to get an accurate figure automatically for these settings. Use of either method above should be sufficient as a work-around however to get the figures you need.

eugenelavery

I have just bought a new computer and for whatever reason PIMx is not working. All I ever get is an error message telling me to check the .exe log. I think I have downloaded all the appropriate bug fixes. Is PIMx not compatible with the latest Windows OS?

tomvsotis

Did you follow these instructions? PIM-X has a problem w Windows 7; maybe it has the same problem w whatever your new computer is running?

eugenelavery

Quote from: tomvsotis on February 11, 2019, 08:36:10 PM
Did you follow these instructions? PIM-X has a problem w Windows 7; maybe it has the same problem w whatever your new computer is running?

Yes I did follow those instructions.

mgb204

Quote from: eugenelavery on February 11, 2019, 08:12:52 PM
I have just bought a new computer and for whatever reason PIMx is not working. All I ever get is an error message telling me to check the .exe log. I think I have downloaded all the appropriate bug fixes. Is PIMx not compatible with the latest Windows OS?

Many people have confirmed it works just fine with Win10.

Have you actually checked the log file, what does this tell you? Almost certainly you are missing the same .dll files which are mentioned in the first post of this thread. A key giveaway would be the mention of missing modules in the log file.

Not only must you have those .dll files installed, but they must be somewhere PIM-X is able to find them. Most likely, you already have at least some of these files on your PC, just in a location where PIM-X doesn't see them. Do a search for each file on your computer, for those you find, do one of the following:

  • Copy the .dlls into the PIM-X install folder
  • Copy them into a system folder:
    for 32-bit systems that's "C:\Windows\System32"
    for 64-bit systems, use "C:\Windows\SysWOW64"

    The benefit of the latter method, is that all programs on your system will find .dlls here, not just PIM-X. The whole idea of .dlls was supposed to be that only one would ever need to exist, regardless of how many apps used them. DLL = Dynamic Linked Library, a small chuck of code that applications can call and re-use. However, it's rare such files are released on their own, they come with larger suites such as C++ runtime libraries. When installed from the correct package, they will be placed in the system folders correctly.

    Of course if one or two is missing, you may need to manually download/install them.