Depends on specs and the games you're willing to play. You can't give a simple answer to all this.

Win98se Build
CPU - Intel P3-500mhz.
512mb. ram
20gb HD
Voodoo-3
Sound Blaster Audigy 2zs
10/100 ethernet
56k modem

At least you will need the generic USB Mass Storage Driver. That will make your life easier.

Directx june 2006 redistributable
IE 6.0 SP1
TweakUI 1.33
InstMsiA.exe
MDAC_TYP.exe
unicows.exe
vbrun60sp6.exe
Windows Media Player 9
WMI9X.exe

vbrun100.dll
vbrun200.dll
vbrun300.dll
vbdb300.dll
vb40016a.exe
vb40032a.exe
mci32,ocx
msvbvm50.exe
vb6 community edition
bwcc.dll
dao351.exe
DataAcc.exe
VB3 VBX (grid.vbx, linedraw.ttf,mscomm.vbx, threed.vbx)
gdiplus.dll
KernelEx-4.5.2.exe
vcredist.exe (Visual C++ Runtime 2005 SP1 (x86))
WinG SDK
JAMONDO.exe
IE6 Offline, Flash Player 9, MSjavx86.exe
1GHz Shutdown Patch
msrdpcli6.exe

quick time
cdifs20b.zip (CD_i driver)
Power Now fix (PN_3_0_5.EXE)
directx control-panel
jre-1_5_0_20-windows-i586-p.exe
dgVoodoo v1.50 Beta 2 for Windows 9x2000MEXP2003
1261115031_Win98_Driver_V1.0.1.4
emsmagic
cpu-z_1.76-win98.zip
hover 😀

You need drivers for all your devices. Besides that, don't go installing a bunch of random software/updates etc that people are posting. If you need something installed to run a game, do it. If not, let it be.

I just use the unofficial service pack combined with deamon 3.47

No updates, unless required by a driver or whatever, just slows things down and OS is just still insecure anyways.
I don't even bother with the USB Mass support update, that's what the network is for, or the shutdown patch as I seem to have better luck shutdown without applying it!?

Apps
deamon 3.47
WinRAR 3.93 (or use your preferred archive software)
(Both the above are the final versions for 98)

I also like IE6, WMP9, Winamp 2.95, Office XP but these are just desirable not needed.

Drivers (as I have a similar system to yours)
Chipset drives, 3.20.1008 is the last version to support BX motherboard in Win98
Audigy 2 ZS drivers from CD off the vogons driver page.
Voodoo reference drivers 1.04.02
Latest Nic drivers
DirectX 9.0c (08 Dec 2006 is the final version)

"Mods"
I set Performance tab, File System, Network server
I used to use TweakUI 1.33, to clear out history, I don't bother now
I used to set the swap file a specific size, I don't now with PC's running way more ram then needed.

additional apps:
- Wintop (i.e. light weight Task Manager for Windows 98)
- TCP Optimizer (version 3.08)
- SideWinder 3.02 joystick driver (if MS joystick is used)

sound, video, chipset drivers
unofficial service pack 2.1
nusb33.exe usb storage driver
directx 7 or 8.1 (the older the better)
opera browser
winrar
daemon tools
enable DMA on hard drives
network card + install netBEUI, tcp/ip and using a windows XP machine as a file server for games and disk images

If you're using a ball mouse on your old machine like I am make sure to use PS2 Rate. It will smooth your mouse movement and make it feel much better in games!! Just don't go too crazy on the refresh as it can tax your CPU.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ps2rate.html

Wow, That's allot of addons and updates. Where is the best place to get all these updates ?

7-zip 9.20
DirectX 7.0a or 8.1 (depending on the video card)
Internet Explorer 5.5
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.20 (if I want to mess around with its usefulness on the internet)
NUSB33e
Windows Media Player 7.1 (v9 doesn't seem as nostalgic as v7, but this depends on your taste)
And of course, drivers for the hardware that needs them. 😀

As for specific driver ranges, I recommend the following:
For nVidia video cards: Detonator 45.23 or earlier
For ATI video cards: Catalyst 3.2 (for R100-200 cards) or 6.2 (for R300 cards)
For Aureal Vortex 2 sound cards: 4.06.2015 (if using DirectX 7.1+) or 4.06.2041 (if using DirectX 7.0a)

- Connectix Virtual PC 4.1 for Windows

To run a real OS. Such as Windows 2000 or XP! 😁

(Just kidding. It's not even sure that VPC can run on 98SE.
Official Host-OSes required for VPC are Me, 2K, NT4 SP6.
Yes, Me. It can't be that bad if it can run a virtualizer, can it ?)

I tried the "unofficial service pack" and didn't like it. It's a bunch of kludges that require manual installation, do not provide a way to uninstall them, hardly explain what's changed and why, and applies some annoying customizations that you may not be able to remove. All in all it looks like someone was just playing a game of "let's check which core Windows components I can copy over from later versions without my Win98 crashing" and compiled a list of them. There are certainly very few "essentials" among them.

I suggest just installing the limited set of things that are truly useful - newer DirectX, NUSB33 (for Mass Storage / USB2.0 support), perhaps KernelEx (if you want to expand the software compatibility a bit), and the few others (e.g., oeuvre's list).

Yeah the last time I tried that "service pack" it forced a half-assed Me theme and also forced some unsafe UDMA parameters that corrupted a few files. I haven't had a faster panic Win98se reinstall since.

Looking at it now it has expanded to include software piracy among its features. seriously, bundling a rip of Word 97?????

Jo22 wrote:

- Connectix Virtual PC 4.1 for Windows To run a real OS. Such as Windows 2000 or XP! :D (Just kidding. It's not even sure that […]
Show full quote

- Connectix Virtual PC 4.1 for Windows

To run a real OS. Such as Windows 2000 or XP! 😁

(Just kidding. It's not even sure that VPC can run on 98SE.
Official Host-OSes required for VPC are Me, 2K, NT4 SP6.
Yes, Me. It can't be that bad if it can run a virtualizer, can it ?)

Virtual PC 5.1 works on 98,ME and NT4 but Vmware Workstation 4.5.3 is better in most cases but for DOS and Windows 3.x you're better off with Real DOS, Command prompt or DOSBox. No 3D acceleration support in these VPC,Vmware versions so unless you want to hunt down a non-3D accelerated game that only runs in 2K or XP not much point or run Linux and Wine using software acceleration. Kernelex is the best option. We only used VPC,Vmware on 9x and NT4 back then for mainly testing purposes.

DosFreak wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

- Connectix Virtual PC 4.1 for Windows To run a real OS. Such as Windows 2000 or XP! :D (Just kidding. It's not even sure that […]
Show full quote

- Connectix Virtual PC 4.1 for Windows

To run a real OS. Such as Windows 2000 or XP! 😁

(Just kidding. It's not even sure that VPC can run on 98SE.
Official Host-OSes required for VPC are Me, 2K, NT4 SP6.
Yes, Me. It can't be that bad if it can run a virtualizer, can it ?)

Virtual PC 5.1 works on 98,ME and NT4 but Vmware Workstation 4.5.3 is better in most cases but for DOS and Windows 3.x you're better off with Real DOS, Command prompt or DOSBox. No 3D acceleration support in these VPC,Vmware versions so unless you want to hunt down a non-3D accelerated game that only runs in 2K or XP not much point or run Linux and Wine using software acceleration. Kernelex is the best option. We only used VPC,Vmware on 9x and NT4 back then for mainly testing purposes.

I've successfully used VPC 5.1 on Win98SE on Celeron-466. It was very slow, but usable. 😀 But Win2k as host OS is some better as it can close frozen applications, and VPC is like to freeze in some situations on weak hardware.

leileilol wrote:

Yeah the last time I tried that "service pack" it forced a half-assed Me theme and also forced some unsafe UDMA parameters that corrupted a few files. I haven't had a faster panic Win98se reinstall since.

Looking at it now it has expanded to include software piracy among its features. seriously, bundling a rip of Word 97?????

They just can't get enough of Clippy.