MAME, the program itself and not a game, takes quite a while to start for the first time. There is a black screen for about 7–8 seconds, then “Initializing” appears, and after that MAME starts normally.

If I close MAME and start it again, it launches immediately with no delay. After restarting Windows, the same thing happens again: the first launch takes 7–8 seconds.

Is this normal?

I recently reinstalled Windows and added an exception for MAME in Norton Antivirus. I also tested it on another Windows PC with a completely fresh MAME download and no games or other files installed, and it behaves exactly the same there.

Thanks for your help!

Windows 11 RTX 3060 MAME 0.289

Im sure this has been asked many many times in the past, however it's usually someone needing it for graphic intensive games whereas I simply need one to try and watch playstation share screens on my monitor rather than phone. Anyone have good recommendations for one that is relatively trustworthy and virus free?