More Awesome Than You!

First of all, let me just say that, despite working for a pretty intensive software company, I am a complete moron, bordering on imbecile, when it comes to computer stuff.  So please explain stuff to me as if I were a grandmother (which, by an odd coincidence, I am!), and maybe I'll catch on.  Thanks in advance for your help!

Like a complete fool, I actually did what EA said I should, and I installed the latest Bon Voyage patch.  Ever since then, every stinkin' time I try to load the game, the screen goes black and I hear the 'click' (that means my video card is doing what it's supposed to), but then the screen clicks back to my desktop and I get this error message:

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.

Since I am a relatively logical person, the first thing I did was get the latest version of DirectX, and installed the driver.  Then I downloaded and installed the driver for my ATI Radeon 9600 video card.  Still same problem.

Thinking my Bon Voyage disk may have crapped out, I installed Free Time.  Same problem.  So I uninstalled and reinstalled Bon Voyage, thinking that if the patch was causing the conflict, uninstalling Bon Voyage would remove the patch.  Same problem.

I've completely uninstalled my entire Sims2 configuration (ALL the EP's and ALL the SP's) and only reinstalled the base game.  Same problem.

That's when I got EA Customer Service involved.  On their advice, I've changed the Auto-run compatibility to Windows 2000.  I've copied the disk images to my hard drive, changed the DirectX line in the Auto-run file from 9.0 c to 0, and installed from the hard drive.  I've done a complete uninstall and checked my registry keys, but there were no files corresponding to the filenames they gave me to check for.  I've made sure I'm trying to run the game from an Administrator profile in Windows.  Still same problem.

Their latest suggestion is to do another complete uninstall and create a new Administrator account, then try again.  I really have no faith that this will work, and I am going to go postal very soon and wipe out some poor innocent Customer Care center in India if I can't play this game on my computer soon!  Is there anyone here with any other ideas??

Are you using a no-cd patch? That sounds like the error a lot of people were getting when they improperly placed their crack. (that sounds funny...)

Hmmm.....  never even heard of a no-cd patch, so I'm probably not using one.  ...  And I just hate when I improperly place my crack!  ;)

Don't know if this will help in your case, but I had that happen when I tried to use an older (edited for widescreen) 'Graphics Rules.scr' file in FT.  FT apparently made some changes to the file, so you'd have to edit the FT one for widescreen rather than reusing an old one.

You could also try deleting the userProps.xml file from your  "my documents\ea games\the sims 2\config" directory, and letting the game rebuild it (if it loads). You'll have to restore your options, but sometimes that file gets out of sync with your system (i.e. you've updated your graphics card).

If all else fails you may be able to download applicable drivers from your graphics card manufacturer.

My Computer came with DirectX 10.0c to find out which version your computer has  open run,type in dxdiag .

this will tell you which version of graphics,directx and audio systems your computer has.

Good Luck and I hope this helps

 :) It's not Direct X that's the problem . It's ATI's Catalyst drivers from 7.9 onwards that have given a lot of Direct X error messages and won't let you play your games for a lot , if not most AGP cards . I use a 9600 Pro and use the last ones that worked before that and they work fine , so find a copy of Catalyst 7.8 and install that and it should clear up your problem hopefully  :)

http://www.driverheavendownloads.net/ati.htm