I'll make one last attempt to seal the deal on this one.
I think you are getting it wrong.
Let me explain. I too have completed GTA IV on pc and the performance after adding/removing tons of patches & wasting a lot of time on tweaking it became stable i think have finished it with high settings too and the average fps i got was around 40s when on foot and around 25 when driving.
Back when it released, I only applied an command line tweak file which made the game relatively smoother and playable. Zero patches were released on day one. The frame rates you're providing is much better than what any of the consoles offered. Both consoles were locked at 30 frames and could have dropped below that at various points. Since we don't have frame rate monitoring on console, we'd barely notice anything.
I don't know how its unfair. This is a fact and it cannot be changed with time. Moreover none of the previous GTA titles were a good port and if you ask people or GTA fans they will tell the same even today.
I meant why would one even bother purchasing a game which released 4 years ago and keep pointing out how it performed when it released. What's the point in that?
You're purchasing the game on the PS3, when your current configuration may handle it much better, not to mention being cheaper. But then again, your recurring issues with GFWL on the PC may have swayed your decision, which is understandable.
As for the earlier GTA games, I never heard of any performance issues being reported on them. My friend was able to max out GTA San Andreas on his 6600GT on release day, when it looked absolutely horrible on the PS2.
Coming to crysis ethan you are comparing two completely different games. Crysis is something different according to me crysis still looks far better than 95% of today's games. It really distinguished itself from other games with high quality cinematic visuals. During its time barely a handful of people could max it. In GTA's case the settings was not a matter the performance was almost same for all the settings .
Now if you compare GTA IV's visuals to crysis then it doesn't even comes close to it. The funny thing is even it is less demanding than the former.
I'm not comparing the two game, as that would be quite absurd. I'm merely pointing out the "optimization" aspect. Just because one's hardware cannot handle it at that point, does necessarily equate it into being unoptimized. This game scaled well with Quad core CPUs, so dual cores would have it's fair share of issues.
Now what we have in GTA IV? Only the performance improved?
This game wasn't meant to be a Crysis killer. Hell, going by GTA's past graphical track record, we shouldn't have even expected such amount of detail in this game. All the previous GTA games had a cartoony look. Besides there are mods which can be applied to make it look 10x better than it's console counterparts.
I actually had given up the idea for playing EFLC but since we don't have much good games now and have heard good things about TBoGT thats why thought of trying it. Otherwise i wouldn't have even cared for this game.
I loved The Ballad of Gay Tony more than GTA IV. It sported much better visual theme and also had hilarious set of characters. You'll love it. Can't say the same for Lost & the Damned though.
) but what the hell? 
hyeah:
