ok, ive gone into mame 32 options and set sound to no sound, and games launch so its working minus sound i now know.
removed directx3 via add/remove progs
loaded a cd of directx8 and windows said it was installed, it doesn't show up in add/remove programs and if i try to install it via add/remove it doesn't find the cd, where would i find the directx to see it is installed?
when i try to run mame with directx selected in the sound options it takes a little longer to get the error message than with directx3 ,like its trying but it fails
cheers all