You know, I'm started to get a little frustrated here. This is at least the third time I have asked for more information about your computer and have gotten no answer.
How much RAM do you have?
What processor do you have and what is it's speed?
I'm not the only one who has asked for this information. Without it, you really can't get any help that doesn't consist of a pure guess. There is a reason why people ask clarifying questions in a help thread, and it's because that information is needed before you can get accurate help.
Either answer these questions, or we'll be forced to assume you're more interested in giving us the run around rather than getting the help you need.
From dxdiag:
Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 3.06GHz
Memory: 2016MB RAM
Name: (empty string)
DirectXtab: Nao foram encontrados problemas (= No problems found)
But that was before I ran setup with a file that I downloaded somewhere,
I solved the DirectX problem, and now I think I may be able to play The Sims 2
(there are still other problems). I will post the complete solution to the
DirectX problem at night (or tomorrow).
Thanks for all the help.
Now for the solution:
(1) Test if the problem lies in DirectX or in the Video driver. dxdiag can tell that
(2) If the problem lies with DirectX, then try to solve it (no clue). If dxdiag says something like "No problems found", then the problem lies with the Video card.
From this point on, we will suppose that this is the problem
(2.1) Discover what is the name of the video card. I don't know how to do it
in Windows, but in Linux it's just:
lspci -vv
(2.2) Go to the company that produced the video card, and download the
driver.
(2.3) Install the driver - in my case, the driver was a zip file, I had to unzip
it and run setup
(3) Reboot and test if the DirectX error remains.