Quick question regarding MAME executable

[Hockeyboy]

I'm at the latter stages of the build and have turned to the software side to finish things out. I formatted my HDD and put Windows XP on it. Then I built a folder for my MAME files and went to find a MAME executable file. Does MAME no longer come with an executable file? I found the source and zipped files on both of the main MAME sites, but after extracting, neither one puts a MAME.exe into the directory? Then I read that you have to compile MAME to get an executable?

I still have an older version of 32-bit MAME saved on my other computer - can I just copy that file over to the new computer hard drive and have it work just fine? Well, actually, the entire directory, or should I be getting the newest version of MAME - which, according to the MAME sites, is .151, and running that version? I think my version is .093, but I've never had any errors.

Thanks in advance, and please let me know if this forum is the correct one to post this question.

[PL1]

Choose the desired version from the binaries (.exe files) here.   


Scott

[mgb]

Sounds like you downloaded the source when you should have downloaded the binaries. 
You can really use any version you like as long as it supports the games you want to play.
   I still use .104 on my cabinet because I don't feel like upgrading and I believe some video settings changed after this version.
Depending on what your running for a computer, later versions may be a bit more taxing on it. My cab has an old 1.8g P4.
  On my newer 3.2g quad core that's hooked up to a TV I currently use maneui64 .151

[Hockeyboy]

I wasn't trying to grab the source files, I was trying to run the .exe files or open the .zip files found on the www.mamedev.org site - where PL1 said to go. It looks like if you grab these files, and extract/run them, you get some sort of mamepp file and that is the new application or executable file that runs MAME now?

My computer that I am running for my MAME cabinet is running an Intel Quad Core Q9450 CPU, with 4Gb of RAM and a 9800 GT video card. I'm not going to run other consoles, just MAME and Daphne and I'm not planning on running any of the "newer" arcade games. I'm pretty sure I won't be pushing the envelope on what the computer will be able to run. And, I'm running this on Windows XP 32-bit - the motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45-DS3L.

I'll try again and see if I can get the file I mentioned earlier to run.

[Slippyblade]

The first pic below shows the button from the main page you click.  The second pic shows what pops when you click the first button.  That .exe is a self extracting archive that places the actual mame.exe and support files along with directory tree wherever you run it from.