Yeah, This definitely seems to be becoming an issue.
I've been having the same trouble, but while not a comp novice, i've not been able to solve it.
My system reqs meet Sims 2 reqs
>Athlon Xp 2600+
>ATU RAEDON 9600 pro 256 mb ddr
>80 gigs hdd
given that raedon 9600 pro is definitely a dx 9c compatible card, the error message simply pissed me off.
Well couple of things bout the DX 9c installation prgram, what i figured out is that the dx 9c installer wont reinstall if you already have 9c installed on your machine. coz i ran dxdiag and i have dx 9c installed. seems to me that the catalyst 4.9 drivers are the problem...so later tonight i'm gonna uninstall 4.9 and install 4.8 to see if Sims 2 runs. Sucks that i cant play Sims 2, but i've been searching all over and havent found an answer yet. The guys at EA games have no updates or patches (not even news on this issue), makes you wonder what they are upto...anywayz if someone has more news and possible fixes to this problem plz post.
$@mmY