You’re asking for nothing but heartache and frustration by trying to run any game (other than Zork) on any old or underpowered box. Max memory, fast HD, high end video card, plus any other tweaks is the only way to run most any game. Gaming software is known to totally push the limits of any machine— and O/S.
I’d recommend a dedicated box just for games— for a number of reasons. But trying to make any game work on a slow, RAM poor box will never work. You have to realize that the Windoze O/S will take a majority of any RAM and CPU cycles, leaving precious little for any software running on it. You can ge a cheap box today with 2+ Gigs of Ram and a hot CPU and video card that will run games pretty good.
But don’t even think about putting a game on an old, slow box. You’ll hate it. Hate the game. Hate the frustration.
I could just download some really small game files for it like Pac-Man and DSig Dug and let the kids have the old compy. The one I am going to buy is for courses I am taking, 25% off through the college site for what I am looking at. Its a basic Toshiba laptop but I am going to make sure it has at least 2GB.
I should think an older game like SimCity4 shouldn’t be too taxing. I am also looking at MS Flight Simulator