I remember trying every single SVGA driver that came on the SimCity 2000 CD until I found one that would let the game load; the board I had was some no-name knockoff, but the OAK TECHNOLOGIES driver worked.
Also, I remember that with some tools that come on a floppy disk with the card, I could output a 1024x768 graphics scree, but with a horrible blinking... I think that I was putting my multi-sync monitor at the limit.
* Graphics card RAMDAC bandwidth was a limiting factor for higher resolutions x higher refresh rates, too. And video memory limited higher desktop resolutions x higher color depths for years - really until 3D accelerators were coming of age.