Why can't anything be easy?! Picked up used computer - MAME won't start

[megamoze]

I've been testing all the software on my workstation.  I picked up a used Dell Dimension e310 on Craiglist specifically for my MAME cab.  Hyperspin runs (a little laggy), Daphne runs fine, but MAME just shows up as a black screen. 

The machine itself seems plenty fast enough but the onboard graphics are total doggy doo.  Could this be related to a lack of a graphics card?  I didn't think that MAME required one.  I'm using the latest version of MAME.  I could pick up a gfx card but the e310 only has PCI, no AGP or PCIe.

Any thoughts?

[Ginsu Victim]

You definitely want a card over onboard graphics when it comes to an older machine. It doesn't even have to be all that great to be better than the onboard graphics.

[Phreakwars]

You can add a GeForce GT 610 into that machine. That's about the best video card your gonna be able to pull off on a PC that old.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500262

[Slippyblade]

If you can't or don't want to get a video card add "-video ddraw" to your command line.  It'll be slightly fuzzy/blurry but it works just fine.

[megamoze]

I have a video card on order (not easy to find for this old PC), but in the meantime I changed the video settings in the mame.ini to turn off video ddraw and that seems to have worked.

Thanks!!