How should I go about transferring saves between computers?

Building a new PC this week and I'm not sure how to go about transferring my saves files from my old machine. Do I basically just find the specific game files in the C drive, hunt down the "Saves" folder (or something to that effect) and move the files on a thumb drive? Should I move the original files, or could I copy them?

When it comes time to putting the files on my new machine, do I just install the game, go down the game file path and place the save files in the Saves folder?

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

You answered your own question. Certain games might require you to do a little more, but a quick Google search should explain any complications. Good luck!

Basically depends on the era of the game you're talking about. Much older games typically saved to the game install directory. Pretty much anything past the Windows 98 era saved to My Documents, in one folder or another. Despite Windows having a dedicated "Saved Games" folder after XP, nothing actually uses that... and then the very odd game will save somewhere in the hidden "appdata" folder in your user folder (you probably won't need to worry about this). Yeah, PC savegame placement is a stupid mess.

Anyway, it's as simple as copying over the saved game folders and putting them in the directory they were supposed to be in. Just copy your current documents folder and place everything in the new one.

Yeah, for the majority of games you can just hunt down the save location and copy it to a thumb drive, then install the game and drop the save file in the proper spot. There's a list of save locations for Steam games (I assume a few of your games are on Steam, if not the majority) here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=840657

It generally depends on the game, but yeah, that's the gist of it. You can copy it and it should be fine. Watch out, some games for windows games are weird and have encrypted saves or some other bullshit that prevents you from backing up or moving saves.

Good luck figuring out where all the save directories are for you stuff.

If you're on Steam, turn on cloud saves for as many games as possible, will save a lot of time :)