2001 Hyundai Accent - Sputtering only on Start

Hello,
Thanks for taking time to help me out, I really appreciate your generosity. I have a manual 2001 Hyundai Accent, and when I haven't driven my car for about 12 hours, and I start it, the car turns on and the engine starts. When I apply the gas pedal the car sputters, or it doesn't even go (almost feels like when you let the clutch up without giving it any gas, the car kind of jumps forward a bit ). When it's not sputtering, it stays in idol even as I push down the gas pedal. This will go on for a couple minutes, and every so often the car will lurch forward as if it's getting gas, but this is only brief and then it goes back to idol/sputtering. After a few minutes of this sputtering, giving it gas, and sometimes having the car turn off completely(stall out), the car will start getting more gas and picking up speed. Once the car starts running, its fine, and drives with no issues. I can even stop and turn off the car, come back an hour later, and it starts perfectly. It's only when it hasn't ran for a 12 hours. What could be the issue? Any help is greatly appreciated thanks. is the check engine lite on or has it been on lately?

how long since the fuel filter was changed? Thanks for the quick response.

The engine light has been on since I bought the car 2 years ago, but this problem has only become serious in the past few months. It may or may not be related. What is the easiest and cheapest way to get the error codes for the engine light? If I recall two years ago, I was told the engine light had to do something about the air/oxygen and fuel mixture. But my car has been getting good MPG so I never thought about fixing it.

About the fuel filter, I have never seen it replaced in the two years I had it. The car runs fine after it starts and high speeds are not an issue. If the fuel filter was clogged then it would sputter at higher speeds more than lower ones, right?

Thanks again, looking forward to your advice.
- Josh the fuel filter can cause high or low speed problems, depending on how clogged it is. i mentioned it cause its something that should be replaced evry 30k miles as routine maintenance, and its something most folks dont think about. so if u dont know how long its been, id recomend replacing it, even if it dont fix this problem it can head off other problems later on.

your right about the check engine lite, it may or may not be related to this. but suppose it was on when u bought the car, for something not related. then just recently something that is related happened, and stored another code in the computer. now u got more then one code in there, but u dont know about the new one cause the lite has been on the whole time.

autozone and maybe some other parts stores where u live will pull trouble codes for free. so run it by there and get it scanned. write down the exact code numbers that come up, not just a description. dont let them sell u nothing yet. then post the code numbers here and thatll give us a place to start.

again, it may not tell us nothing about this problem. but the first step in diagnosing any kinda driveability problem is to scan for codes, especialy when the check engine lite is on.Car Repair Talk's forum.