I've noticed that whenever I use my home Emulator server, I get black screens through a lot of the process. Did you let it sit a while to be sure that it wasn't just loading something and you didn't see it (best way to tell is to watch the hard drive light)?
Also, one last thing you might try is updating your DirectX and Video Card driver if neither one is latest (DirectX should probably be DirectX 9.0b...)
-Sarepean
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