I don't really know a solution to it, but it sounds very much like a fairly common flight simulator problem. As long as your graphics card is focusing on one thing (ie water, or sky), it's fine. But as soon as it has to do both at once (showing the horizon), it drops.
My computer is old as well. It's an Athlon X2 64 2.2ghz. I've got 3 gigs of RAM. So all total I have a barely better machine than you. The only difference is that since it's a desktop, my graphics card has been upgraded again and again and again in the intervening years. Currently running an Nvidia 9500gt.
Why it runs SH4 smoothly, I honestly couldn't tell you. But I would stake my life that your problem is your onboard video having to share memory with the system rather than having it's own to play with like an installed card. Considering it's a laptop, I might think overheating a bit too, but that's only based on my own past experience with a laptop running flight simulator 2004 many many years ago.
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