With older titles I've noticed many Windows 8/8.1 users have a trend of experiencing poor preformance in games using DirectX 7 or lower as well as DirectDraw. The only thing closest to a remedy I've found this forum post showing use with Microsoft Compatability Toolkit and a custom ddraw.dll. I can confirm that the ddraw.dll really does improve performance on my machine, as for MCT though, its hit or miss. I've started this to see if something more elaborate should be added to the wiki about Windows 8/8.1 D3D compatability or if someone else had a better solution to the problem.
I apologize if this is in the wrong section, as this is my first forum post.