Everything just hangs at the nag screen

[Draco1962]

The main thing is the .net framework (which it appears you have) and Direct X and the up-to-date drivers. I assume that you probably have onboard audio, too, and that is OK. I do on my machine and have had few if any problems as a result. Before venturing to other emulators let's see what we can do to get GameEx stable on the affected machine. For those new, I usually recommend starting with MAME, get it configured and working, then GameEx, wash - rinse - repeat. Once you have those two working well together, you can get adventurous. It is easy to get spread too thin troubleshooting multiple emulator issues, system issues, etc. and that will only add to your frustration and start a nasty self-feeding loop of despair and kill any joy you may get from this interesting and fun hobby.

[drunkenpirateking]

Aha! It wasn't a driver issue, far as I can tell. After numerous driver updates and game ex not working, I went through and deleted all my microsoft visual stuff for x86 (I'm running x64, which I kept) and viola, works like a charm. To be honest, I'm not sure why I had installed the x86 versions. Is there actually any advantage for running x86 visual stuff on an x64 machine?

Either way, yay. Finally I get to test this stuff out. Thanks for all the help, I'm sure I'll have another question in the next hour. haha.

[Draco1962]

Glad ya got it figured out! Keep in mind that the term "driver" is relative. While it turned out not to be a driver issue in the classic sense of video or audio as I thought it might be (the usual suspects and easiest to fix), there are program drivers as well. Personally, I find that running with the x64 versions if you have a 64-bit OS installed is generally the best policy. x86 on an x64 machine will generally run OK in a 64-bit OS, but you do not get the gains you will generally find with the wider bandwidth the x64 architecture provides.