User blog comment:GiantBasilisk/The Sims 1/@comment-480886-20130603130519

Remember that TS1 was released before widescreen monitors became commonplace, so it only supports the 4:3 aspect ratio. Also, it only supports 800x600 and 1024x768 -- in 2000, 1024x768 was still considered reasonably high resolution. That won't affect your laptop's ability to run it, but depending on the laptop's screen size, you may want to run it in windowed mode.

Also, TS1 will only see 2GB of RAM; in 2000, that was a lot. If the installer detects more than 2GB, it may report that there is less than 64MB, and ask if you want to continue. Say "Yes", and the installation should proceed normally.