I want to get Sims 4 and Sims 3

"old laptop air", are you talking about a MacBook Air? What exact model?

SIMS 4 system requirements are here https/www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/the-sims/the-sims-4/standard-edition#requirements Compare that with what your laptop has. If SIMS 4 will run, SIMS 3 will also, just make sure you get the version compatible with the Mac, assuming that is what you are getting.

Specifically which Dell laptop model do you plan on buying?

"Old" does not tell us anything. A laptop from 1999 is old, and it won't matter what the model is because it will definitely not be able to run either of those two games.

Okay, that helps. So it is possible it is the Dell Inspiron 17R from 2012 with a 1600x900 resolution and possibly a Core i5-3210M CPU with the integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics core. To find out exactly what CPU it has you can download a program called CPU-Z and it will tell you which model it is.

You can download the program from the following link. It is a Zip file so simply unzip it into a folder and run the program.

http/www.cpuid.com/downloads/cpu-z/cpu-z_1.80-en.zip


The program will give you information similar to the image below which shows whatever PC the CPU-Z program was ran on, it has a Core i5-2400 CPU. You might as well also click on the Memory tab to find out how much RAM is installed on the laptop.

There is a tab for Graphics; click on it and you can see what kind of graphics the laptop has. Because you have an i3-4030u CPU, the graphics will be the Intel HD 4000. If the laptop has dedicated graphics, then when you click the drop down list arrow you should be able to see the dedicated graphics. In the screenshot below, the laptop / PC only has the Intel HD graphics. If the drop down list arrow is greyed out like in the image below, then that means the laptop only has the Intel HD 4000 for graphics.




Also, click the Memory tab to see how much RAM is installed in the laptop. There is a field called "Size" the will state the amount of RAM. From an experience a friend of mine had years ago when she was playing the Sims 3, the game would sometime crash on her laptop which only had 4GB of RAM. She upgraded it to 8GB which fixed the crashing.

The Sims 3 should be able to run using the Intel HD 4000 because the game ran on my friend's laptop which had the less powerful Intel HD 3000 graphics. She ran the game at 1366x768 resolution because that was the maximum resolution of the laptop's screen.

You can play the Sims 3, but it may crash with only 4GB of RAM based on my friend's experience.

Based on the following video the Sims 4 should be playable with the Intel HD 4000 at 1280 x 720 resolution using low / medium setting.

https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3HHiCHs_VI&t=98s


You can download a free trial of the Sims 4 from EA's Origin store in the following link. Click the "Get Trial" button which should download and install the trial version of the Sims 4 and you can play it for 48 hours. There is a "Try Demo" button as well, but I think that is only for the character creator.

https/www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/the-sims/the-sims-4/digital-deluxe-edition#media


If the Sims 4 works fine, then just wait for a sale before you buy the game. I assume there will be a Black Friday sale.