If you wanted to give it another try, I found this guide for SAI 2: https://github.com/TibixDev/sai2-guide
Many users reported no issues running Sims 2 on protondb, I'd recommend installing it via Lutris: https://protondb.com/app/3314070
You may need to adjust some settings like the runner (wine-ge is default in Lutris and works for all my games, Proton is also popular) or the environment variables (flags detailed in the protondb reports)
Then you could install simPE under the same Wine prefix (like a simulated Windows filesystem) so that it can see your game files. Might have some quirks like what's detailed in this post, but generally seems to work https://www.reddit.com/r/sims2help/comments/1grccow/simpe_on_linux_wine/
A LLM should be able to help you with basic troubleshooting, I'd recommend Gemini over ChatGPT though.
Aside from that I'd just recommend choosing a distro that bundles your GPU drivers to make initial setup easier