ATTENTION :: NEW FINDING ON THIS ISSUE
I first want to say I'm up to this problem for like 4 hours now and I've gone mad. I have believed and tried every theory on this forum but none of them worked. Plus, after going back to DX8 and resintalling 9.0b and then 9.0c resulted in errors in my dx diagnosis. (Error: Could not get basic sound info. result code = some hexadecimals) So, I started to think and try new things hopelessly. Now, I'm happy that I have a working Sims 2 now but I'm too fucking pissed to play it.
Here's the new finding: As you might already know, XP has another very important bug where you cannot change XP's refresh rates from 60Hz to anything else. There are programs like "Refresh Force" or "ReForce" in compact form to fix this, so that you can have more refresh rates than this. Well guess what? If you have one of these, Sims 2 will not work and give that error. If you are using specifically ReForce, you should be able to restore back the original settings easily from within the program. I did it, and now can play Sims 2 without problem.
The thing I don't know is, if I would still be able to play the game if I hadn't tried all the methods written in this forum but only thought of this.
I really believe this is the first thing to check, if you're using such software.
Cheers.
