Hi, sorry I didnt post back, playing the game
my svn is now 2373, and its stable. The sound issue was I didnt have that sonic stuff installed. Seemed a lot of bloat added to my system but if its needed its needed
I initially downloaded 1.6 from the download page, the first page if this thread shows 1.5 in the screenshots which made me believe I had newer enough needed. There was no mention of min version needed in the first post. I then discovered the build numbers from posts people were using way newer so that made me grab the svn version which has all the extra options.
with the GE graphics option on my system it dragged the intro movie to some very slow framerate, so basically I disabled that option and the game is playing very smooth, no slowdowns in fights etc. Very happy.
Using my logitech gamepad, I set it in the controller options which got movement working then I assigned the buttons to the keys which got them working.
This emulator has saved me what was looking like a nightmare situation, I wanted to hook up a psp to my monitor but seems thats not actually very easily possible, and I am not a fan of small portable screens. so this app is a very good solution.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in making this work.