some work, some don't.

[AlienInferno]

If this is in the wrong spot please feel free to move it.

I found out something interesting today.  My computer is a 1.79Ghz (1.8??Ghz) Pentium 4 with 512MB RAM and Windows XP.  I'm running Mame .139 and Maximus Arcade as the frontend.  I have my computer set up to go directly into Maximus without even showing/starting windows.  Sometimes I will play the games directly after starting my computer.  Sometimes I will play them by clicking the Maximus link in windows. 

But what I figured out is that some games/roms (say PacMan or whatever the C.O.W. boys of Moo Mesa game is called) will work when I start and play fine through the link on my desktop but when I let Maximus load on startup of the computer (like it would if it was in a cab) I get the little blue loading screen with percentage from the Mame software then it dissapears and nothing happens. 

I figure the problem is with either Mame or my computer software/settings.  Would anybody happen to know why it would run better when ran directly from the desktop as aposed to the other?  And possibly ways to optimize my pc that might help with this situation?

[drventure]

When it "disappears" is mame still running in the background? You can check taskman to see.

I've had issues before where mame will load and run, but for whatever reason, it'll end up minimized or worse, hidden.

If I recall correctly, it was because it'd run the game on a dual monitor machine, placed on one monitor (#2) and when I moved my setup to a single monitor machine, mame still loaded it to monitor 2.

Sounds like everything runs fine when started from the desktop though, so that may not be the prob.

[AlienInferno]

When I got home from work today I turned on the computer and let it boot into the frontend.  Tried playing the games I was having issues with and they worked.     But I figure if I play them all through the link on the desktop first they should work the rest of the time.  That's the way it's worked with the two so far anyway.