Thanks Headkaze,
I am running this through the MAME32 frontend but the command line version does the same. The issue only occurs when DIRECT3D is enabled (DirectDraw is fine but a bit blurry for text, GDI is fine but slow). I have tried with and without triple buffering, and using version 8 and 9 to no effect.
My graphics card is a GeForce 4MX built into the motherboard so I would have thought it would be fine.
I am trying this out on my home PC first before transferring it to the cab (and this is where the problem is occuring), The cab again only has a built in graphics card which is a generic SiS type. Not sure which model. I guess I will have to try on the cab and see if I get the same problem. I can at least then narrow it down to some configuration issue on the home PC.
I am looking to put the latest version of GameEx on the cab with extra emulators set up as well as MAME and I like to do all of the config work on the home PC as it is more comfortable to work with for this. Both the home PC and the cab are on my wireless network so there is no problem transferring information between the two.
I will try the command line options suggested and look for some newer drivers as well.
Thanks
Muzland