Help with OS/Emulator decision

[dorkwacape]

This is not so much asking but a plee for help, because I have spent the last three days completely failing to get gentoo+advmame+svgalib or framebuffer to work.  My hardware is pretty set (unless someone wants to send me something  )  I have a Toshiba 27" TV, geforce2 MX video card, and S-video out (I think that is all the relevant details).  The computer is currently running gentoo.  With this hardware in mind could anyone suggest what software combination I should use?  I would prefer if someone could suggest a viable linux path, without X, but I am passed the state of being picky.  As stated above I cannot get anything to work as far as advmame goes under the console.  Heck, I might go as far to say is I cannot get svgalib to work under the console, nor can I get rivafb to work under the console.  I think/hope my problem is really poor modeline decisions but I really have no clue.  Any help/suggestions/working modeline postings would be so greatly appreciated

Patrick