I'm having this problem with version 1.5, Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit. Processor is AMD Phenom 9850 BE, card is ATI Radion HD 3870.
I get a black window when I try to play a game, it closes normally when rom emulation is stopped, etc.
In the terminal output, it gets to one or two lines after "Starting r4300 emulator", depending on which interpreter option is set in the config. No matter what changes I make to the config, it seems to always stop in the same place.
The game I'm trying is Battle Tanx: Global Assault.
Never mind... Super Mario 64 seems to work fine. Must just be BattleTanx.