π-/π+ ratio was found to be a sensitive probe to the high-density behavior of the symmetry energy by usingseveral transport models. However, as shown in Fig. 1, at beam energies below the pion production threshold, theeffects of in-medium nucleon-nucleon scattering cross section (which is still controversial) strongly affect the valueof π??/π+ ratio[1]. It is thus necessary to do a comparative study of the effects of the in-medium NN cross sectionand the effects of the symmetry energy on pion production in heavy-ion collisions at lower beam energies.