Okay, let me start out by explaining myself. I have absolutely no experience with the MSX. I was simply interesting in checking a few games out (particularly because I have a crazy idea to do a review/overview of a complete list of godzilla related/licensed games, and there are at least three for this system)

Now, I have downloaded several emulators, and several game roms. I go to load them, following the individual emulator instructions, and am met each time with no picture on the game. I get sound, however.

Consider me stupid. What am I doing wrong do you think?

What emulators are you using?. Usually the full version of BlueMSX executes all ROMs out-of-the-box.

blueMSX, and FMSX.

Might it have anything to do with the fact that my computer is cutting edge, top of the line 1998 technology?

Do you have the system roms?have you selected which msx machine you want to emulate?Go on "Tools" "Machine editor" and check which msx model you have.I think bluemsx ships with c-bios msx and c-bios msx2 roms.If roms are not present and you select a machine that needs them then you won't be able to run it.
Did this help?

If he gets the proper sound, he is running everything allright. I guess he has some weird installation that's acting up. On the 1998 system, are you using the newest video drivers and such? DirectX? OS?

fmsx-dos (by Marcel De Kogel) worked at full speed for me on Pentium 100MHz machine in 1996.

Previously to the launch of BlueMSX or OpenMSX projects I was using NLMSX as my main MSX emulator, pretty good and fast!, maybe it could work for you...

I'm running directx9.0c on windows 98...is that good?

There're still some users with Windows 98 and probably use those emulators without problems. Anyway try with NLMSX too.