I have the same problem.
installing an older vga-driver didn't work. (at least not how _I_ did it... But maybe I did something wrong I'm not good with drivers I tend to break stuff with these)
I tried older desmume versions. The game works fine with a friend of mine...

my specifications:
Windows XP home 2002 (Service Pack 3)
CPU : Celeron 1,7GHz
VGA : NVIDIA GeForce4 MX440
RAM : 512M