So maybe it's better to delete this thread unless someone gives an illegal solution. Expletive! Imagine a Sims house after 2 days without any Sims doing anything to clean up - that's where I will have to search the CD :-(

I reinstalled The Sims 2, but I can't find my EP1 (Uni) CDs.

So, this is what happens:
- reinstall The Sims 2 basic set (4 CDs)
- reinstall The SIms 2 EP5 (Pets) (1 DVD, requires the basic CD 4)

Now, when the game begins, it tells me that I uninstalled EP1 (Uni), so that if I play the game will obliterate the Universities and force all Young Adults to Adults.

So, I guess either I have to dig where I put my EP1 Uni CD (my house is a mess) or try to find a way to hack the game.

Is there any intelligent alternative solution? The computer HD (in a backup directory) has all the information (except registry data) that I used 6 months ago when I played EP5 (Pets) with EP1 (Uni).

No, it didn't work. But this is no longer a DirectX 9.0c problem, but a reinstall problem, so I guess I will stop using this thread to try to solve it. I installed basic, EP5 (Pets), but now I can't play because the game tells me that it will obliterate the Universities and grow the YA to Adults if I play.

I opened a new thread: Reinstall problem

Follow up: finish the install of The Sims 2 (basic). I can't find my EP1 uni CDs, but I will next install EP5 Pets, and try to hack it to use the older Uni install. Maybe I will post a in-character thank you image (with Sims) soon

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.

Sorry to get you all confused with my laconism... I will try to answer y'all here.


I am using both, in a computer with dual boot. And when I wrote the horribly misspelt message (that I later edited) was running both, at the same time, in two different computers (the Linux was a netbook whose microscopic keyboard refused to obey my clumsy fingers). Right now I'm using Linux, and soon I will reboot to Windows to see what I can do to play The Sims 2 again.


I already did that.


What does that mean? Can I run The Sims 2 with an integrated chip?


I tried wine for The Sims 2, but it didn't work. After a Google search, I found that nobody can run The Sims 2 in Linux.


There are two ways to do that: either using a boot manager (it's called GRUB, but there are other boot managers), or with VMWare.

With a boot manager, at start I can chose if I run Linux, Windows, or whatever I put in any partition. One system runs while the other is just some bytes sleeping in (usually invisible) areas of the disk (or disks). Installing Windows first, then Linux, automatically gives the user the dual-boot option, but it's possible to do the other way if Linux is in one disk and Windows in another different disk - Windows formats the critical parts of the disk when installing itself.

Ok, now I will reboot and see what Windows tells me.

If you don't hear from me here for some time, then it's because I'm busy creating my perversions of The Sims 2.

As I wrote in my first message, I was hoping that there were a purely Sims2 solution, like editing some game parameters to avoid this problem - because I'm aware that this is not a Windows forum.

Using Linux command lspci -vv, I think I got what is the video card...

VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology SiS661FX GUI 2D/3D Accelerator

... but I still have no idea on how to procceed from here. I don't think going to Microsoft's site and downloading DirectX 9.0c will solve, because (if I can read it correctly) it seems that DirectX 9.0c is already running (but not working properly);
OTOH Silicon Integrated Systems's site is very unhelpful too, and does not include the download of anything that looks like a DirectX 9.0c.

I read the the other thread, I ran dxdiag, and it just told me I have DirectX 9.0c, but I also don't have it.

Going through the windows help is pointless, because it all ends with the same non-suggestion

And there's no way to figure out what is the stuff I have to download to solve the problem.

Sorry for the typos (using a Netbook to post while Windows takes the other computer)

FWIW, here is the non-information dxdiag gives (it's in Portuguese, I'm mistranslating):

Device:
Built by: n/a
Processor type: n/a
Type of digital/analogical converter: n/a
Total approx of memory: n/a
Current exhibition mode: 800 x 600 (32 bit) (1 Hz)
etc

*Posts merged. Please do not reply to yourself.*

After about half an year without The Sims 2 because Windows XP crashed,
I could reinstall Windows and try to play The Sims 2. I got this error:

  Failed to find any DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics adapters in this system!
  Please make sure you have a DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics adapter
  and have installed the latest drivers provided by the manufacturer. The
  application will now terminate.

Is there any way to bypass this error, or I must try to figure out how do
to whatever this message is trying to tell me to do?

Last time I tried to fix this error was probably what caused Windows XP
to crash.

PS: I just thought it would be meaningless to start a new thread with the same subject as a previous thread.

After about half an year without The Sims 2 because Windows XP crashed,
I could reinstall Windows and try to play The Sims 2. I got this error:

  Failed to find any DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics adapters in this system!
  Please make
 sure you have a DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics adapter
  and have installed the latest
 drivers provided by the manufacturer. The
  application will now terminate.


Is there any way to bypass this error, or I must try to figure out how do
to whatever this message is trying to tell me to do?

Last time I tried to fix this error was probably what caused Windows XP
to crash.

I think this is related to OneBlondMomma's biker outfit - probably you can grab this and change the color to pink: http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,52842.0.html

I think this is just a matter of choosing the bodyshape, the mesh, and doing a copy-and-paste in Bodyshop. IIRC, I had transformed the CF School Uniform to AF (and YAF) for the Fashion Model Bodyshape.

Do you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Are Bodyshop, Fashion Model, etc familiar terms?

I hate you, BlooM  . Just when I decided I would give a break with Fashion Model recolours, you come with a new challenge! Now I'm doomed....

Is there any way to restore the backup? (you do backups, don't you?)

Is this mesh the ubiquitous Multi-Alpha-Mesh converted to teens? BTW, when I read the title, I imagined that this was about _swimsuits_ conversions.