It could be the video card drivers or the card itself. I was running SC4 on a Dell Dimension desktop with XP. I upgraded the video card, the fan and the RAM. I was then able to get the game to load, but then it would only run for 10 to 20 min before crashing. So if you do get it up and running it will crash on you. In order to fix that problem, you need to open the Windows Task Manager.
1. Open Windows Task Manager.
2. Click Processor
3. Find SimCity
4. Right Click
5. Select Affinity
6. Uncheck all but one of the Processors
You only want it to run on one Processor, doesn't matter which one. This has worked for me for a number of years now.
YOU DO have to do this every time you boot up the game.
I'm even running this on the same 32 bit machine with Win 7 and it rarely crashes.
So check your drives, your video card. Close out anything else that you don't need running on the computer.
Maybe even try to re-install it.
If you do get it running, you will have to do what I explained above.