True, I have been able to get many things working well on a 2MB S3 virge.... that doesn't mean both cards don't suck. I've not researched this, but I'll assume that the card isn't actually 1mb? /did you mean 16mb? Because the i710 or whatevers had more than 1 meg of memory...
To be able to fix problems, its best to use a more popular card. A geforce 2 mx 400 32mb or tnt 2 ultra 32mb would help a lot, and only cost about 60$ each.
Then again, since your card is built in and your happy with performance, simply try xgl2000 and evoodoo for ultrahle. If they work good, then... good

If not, there is not much you can do. Corn is a good emu for low-spec systems, but it doesn't run very many games.
In answer to your orig question, my favorite is xgl2000, but only because I knew the author
