Not only the SVGA driver affects the stability of the system when you are running SS but also the OS you are using. You said that you have tried many many versions of the driver I thus consider it to be the other problem.

I don't think Jim have anything to do with SS for this case or the case like this, the random error (I call it...). Someone may consider it as the memory leakage.

You may update the service pack for that OS (Win98SE I don't know if it has any service pack or not...) and see whether it would be better or not.

Or... "try" (I really mean that... ^_^! ) going back a bit to the older version of Win98, may be Win98 + Service pack, or going forward to WinME.