Joystick problem (not I-Pac related) and other issues

[Xenepp]

I have MALA setup with two sticks in my cab and it runs ok but there are a few things that are a bit annoying:

1. The joystick
Using the joystick is a bit rough, I'm using a bog standard PC Line USB pad hacked for the stick and buttons which works great but in Mala, it's kinda like Mala won't scan the inputs quick enough. If I press any direction or button it takes about half a second to a second before I can press another button. This makes going through the game list a nightmare. If I test the stick in windows the inputs work just fine. I verified this with Mala's button check in options.

2. The gamelists
I haven't found a lot of info on this. I want to only display the games I have in the roms folder for MAME but I just can't see a way of Mala being able to do this. Can it?
Sorted!

3. Sound
The sound is kinda annoying too. When I scroll through the list, the sound comes up about (again) half a second to a second from the time I actually moved down the list.

4. The layout
This one's pretty minor but could be related to the other issues. I'm using the retro layout from the Mala site and when I move down the list, the little scrolling space invaders freeze for about the amount of time it takes for button presses/stick moves to work. Is that normal for this layout?

I'm thinking Mala itself is actually struggling for some reason, like it's eating up far too much CPU time, I have a P4 2.8ghz HT in there though so that shouldn't be the problem.

Any help with these issues is appreciated.

 -Joel