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I just installed the sims 2, and when I opened it up to start the game an error came up saying "Failed to find any DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics adapters" (or something similar). I have already got DirectX 9.0c, so what's wrong?
Asked at 05:02 on Tuesday 21 September 2004 by tyne (tinney) Report this Question


6 Answers
First, make sure your graphics card is supported. It must be listed in the system requirements. If it's not supported, the game might work, but there's no guarantee that it will - in fact, it's quite likely it will not. Also remember that some cards, the non-T&L ones, will always require at least 2.0 Ghz processor power to run properly.

See the system requirements page to find out if your computer is good enough to run the Sims 2. Many problems are related to computers that are not good enough to do so.

If your system does meet the requirements, it's necessary to make sure your graphics drivers, DirectX and Windows are up to date.

Note: The following instructions assume you have an internet connection available on the computer you're playing the Sims 2 on. If it doesn't, download the necessary files on another computer, and transfer them to the other computer using a burnt CD-Rom, USB Pendrive, or some other medium.

First go to www.windowsupdate.com and install all necessary updates. For Windows XP, getting Service Pack 2 is recommended (if it's not already installed). Also look for other updates in the "Recommended Updates" section, and install at least all security fixes listed there.

Next are the graphics card drivers. To find out what kind of Graphics card you have, click Start, Run, and enter 'DXDiag' (without quotes). Click the Run button. Let DXDiag finish loading, then go to the "Display" tab.

Note: Before installing new drivers, it's recommended to uninstall old ones. DriverCleaner from http://www.driverheaven.net/cleaner might help with that. For support with removing ATI drivers, see this thread at Rage3D. For nVidia drivers, check this thread at Guru3D.

On the Display tab you'll see the name and manufacturer of the graphics card. First try to download and install new drivers from the manufacturer of the graphics card. Here are some common manufacturers:

Asus: www.asus.com
ATi: www.ati.com
Creative Labs: www.creative.com
Guillemot: www.guillemot.com
Hercules: www.hercules.com
MicroStar Int. (MSI): www.msi.com.tw
PNY: www.pny.com
Sapphire: www.sapphiretech.com
XFX / Pine: www.xfxforce.com

If there are no improvements after installing the new drivers, you can try to download and install the drivers from the manufacturer of the chipset on the card. For instance, Radeon (ATi) and GeForce (nVidia) are chipsets of graphics cards. Here are a few common manufacturers of chipsets, and their most common chipsets:

ATi (Radeon): www.ati.com
Intel (Extreme Graphics): www.intel.com
Matrox (Millennium, Parhelia): www.matrox.com
nVidia (TNT, GeForce, Quadro): www.nvidia.com
PowerVR (Kyro): www.powervr.com
S3 (DeltaChrome, Savage, ViRGE): www.s3graphics.com
SiS (SiS, Xabre): www.sis.com

Look for "Graphics Drivers" or "GPU Drivers" or something like that on all of these sites to find the drivers for your card.

After downloading drivers, install them by running the downloaded file. For more instructions also see the website you downloaded the drivers from.

If updating your drivers still doesn't work, you might have faulty installation of DirectX. Try the following to fix that:

- Make sure the Sims 2 CD is in the drive
- Open My Computer.
- Right click on the Sims2 icon (of the CD-rom drive) and choose Open.
- Double-click on the DirectX folder.
- Right-click on the DSETUP.dll file and choose Copy.
- Close this window.
- Open My Computer again.
- This time, open your C: drive (usually called Local Disk).
- Now open the WINDOWS folder (Sometimes also called WINNT).
- Open the SYSTEM (Windows 98/ME) or SYSTEM32 (Windows 2000/XP) folder.
- Right-click on an empty space in the folder and choose Paste.

It the issue persists, you might have to reinstall DirectX 9.0c. This is located on the Sims 2 CD, or you can download it from the following website:

www.microsoft.com/directx

To install it from the CD, make sure the CD is in the drive, then follow these steps:
- Open My Computer
- Right click on the Sims 2 icon (of the CD drive) and choose Open
- Open the DirectX folder
- Double click the DXSetup icon to run the DirectX installation.
- Follow the instructions on your screen. You might need to reboot after the installation has finished.

If that doesn't work either, a final solution is to run the Sims 2 in Windowed mode instead of Full Screen. To do this, follow these instructions:

- In the Start Menu or on your Desktop, click the shortcut (icon) with the Right mouse button (Left mouse button if your mouse settings are set to left-handed). A pop-up menu should appear.
- Choose "Properties" from this menu.
- Go to the Shortcut tab.
- Click in the "Target" box, and set the cursor to the end of the field (using the "end" key on your keyboard).
- Add "-w" (omit quotes) to the end of the text. Make sure there's a space between that and the last double quote that's already there. It should now be like:

"C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSBin\Sims2.exe" -w

- Click OK

Thanks to OzWiz, the manual and the official site for parts of this answer.

Answer updated on 3 January 2005, topic cleaned up as well.
Answered at 14:57 on Tuesday 21 September 2004 by ChEeTaH (TSZ Webmaster) (ChEeTaH)
Answer Rating: 4.25 (4 votes)
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I got Sims 2 to run on a Windows 98SE machine with an old Intel 810 chipset, 2.6 Gb hard disk space and 94 Mb RAM by adding a "-w" switch to the end of the Target property in the Properties dialog for the desktop icon. To do this, right-click on the Sims 2 icon on your desktop, go to the Properties option and then the Shortcut tab. Insert the mouse cursor into the Target property text box and arrow over to the end of the string already there. Leave the double quotes around this text alone and add a space after the ending double quote and then type a hyphen and w character, without double quotes around them. Then click Apply and OK and try it out.

This switch on the Run command forces Sims 2 to run in a window, and that got us into the game and past the "Failed to find any DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics adapters in this system!..." error on the initial splash screen.

I have seen a lot of threads in lots of forums where no answer seemed definitive, but this tip came from the Intel support knowledge base and I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Note I did download the DirectX 9.0c upgrade from Microsoft and the latest drivers for my Intel 810 chipset graphics system, but the "-w" switch turned the tide.

Note I still get the error message every other time we open the application, but when we open it again it goes in and my daughter has been able to build a family and use the application. I plan to beef up the PC since this one is obviously way underpowered for this application, but at least we can get into the game. I realize this is not a definitive solution, but it might help someone else, so I thought I would post it in case someone with this issue can at least start playing the game.
Answered at 19:26 on Wednesday 29 December 2004 by Ed Osenbaugh (OzWiz)
Answer Rating: 5.00 (1 vote)
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I solved this problem on my system (Server 2003) by going to Control Panel -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshoot .
I then set "Hardware Acceleration" to "Full" .
Answered at 10:59 on Monday 3 January 2005 by Ap Pieters (appieters)
Answer Rating: 4.00 (1 vote)
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I have a SiS 650 6.13.10.2050. I am getting this irritating DirectX error message (it's a welcome change from the LAST error message I got, but I'd rather not have any!).

My dxdiag says "Hardware accelerated Direct3D 9+ is not available because the display driver does not support it. You may be able to get a newer driver from the hardware manufacturer."

So I visited the SiS site and went to the update for my driver. When I went to click the final download button, a pop-up appeared saying "Download object first." What does this mean?! I'm not a total computer n00b but I must admit graphics cards and drivers are not my strong point at all.

I am thinking I should give up on SiS and just go buy a new card, but if anyone has another solution that'd be great. :)
Answered at 17:41 on Saturday 31 December 2005 by b3x_n3ko
Answer Rating: Not Rated Yet.
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I had that problem, and well, i found no solution, you probably should just get a new card - I see no other way :)
Answered at 22:49 on Thursday 26 January 2006 by charlee (xxcharleechopsx)
Answer Rating: 1.00 (1 vote)
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i found a workaround, just change your game or desktop resolution to match each other, it fixed the problem for me, both in the sims 2 & half-life 2...good luck mates
Answered at 16:11 on Friday 8 December 2006 by mike (high007)
Answer Rating: 3.00 (1 vote)
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