Next week, I'll have my brand new i7-970 build with two SLI'd eVGA GTX480s, and 12GB of ram.

Oblivion is currently running on a slower i7 machine with a poor graphics system, under Win7 Home Premium - 32 OEM.

Can I transfer (ethernet) all the game files and mods to the new machine which will be running Win7 Pro 64 - bit. Will the game run okay? Will it run okay with DX11?

If there are going to be problems, I'll install the 32bit version but I would like to try out the 64 bit version if there is a chance of it running well.

I don't think Oblivion can access DX11 capabilities. Oblivion isn't even allowed to access the extra power from multi-threaded cpus or multiple core processors and if so, it's real basic. SLI won't make much help either im afraid. Yes you could transfer your files to your new machine, just use USB or external drives. Im not really certain if 32 bit/64 bit would make any difference.

Im not saying it won't run good. All im pointing out is you won't be able to use those extra features with Oblivion. You should get decent, above playable frames even with your graphics card and processor alone.

You may have to disable 1 of those 480's. The game doesnt like to scale well on SLI/Crossfire. It will not take advantage of DX11, since its using DX9.0c. The game will run fine on a x64 OS. (Also I hope you are using 1000baseT for transfering the files, it would be terribly slow on 100baseT). A single GTX 480 would be enough to max out any game right now. But the problem with Oblivion/Fallout 3 is that there is disk limitations as well. SSDs/10,000RPM drives would come in handy to compensate for the constant loading.

Install the base game on the new machine. I would recommend NOT putting them in the program files folder. Just create a new spot for the game, like C:\Games\Oblivion. Avoids the UAC issues.....

Transfer over your install from the other machine.

DO NOT copy the oblivion.ini.

Re-enable all of your mods.

Start the game so that it can detect the new hardware. Set things how you want them.

Thanks peeps, this helps a lot.

Do you think the same limitations would apply to FNV? I was hoping that FNV could use recent hardware like SLI and Crossfire, and DX11 too. I have not seen any listing of system requirements yet.

I must decide whether to install either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 7. I get the impression that even though both versions are in the retail pack I bought, I can only use one of them. I read where I must buy another copy of Win7 for dual booting. If I have to decide on one or the other, would Oblivion be just as happy with 64-bit as with 32-bit?? I would prefer to use 64-bit because I have 12GB of RAM (and I have the other planned uses of the new PC to consider).

Based on the new information I now have, I am inclined to continue using Oblivion on the old PC to avoid compromising my SLI setup and use of DX11 for newer games.

A final question: can DX11 and DX9c co-exist on the same 'puter?

Yes DX11 and DX9c can be on the same PC. You wont be sacrificing any DX capability, the game was just made for DX9c and will use that instead of DX10/11. The 64 bit version of Windows will work fine for the game.