Try the
Windows 8 Performance "Patch" (works in Win 7 and 10, as well), and see if that makes a difference.
Did you try switching to Software mode in the configuration program?
You can try using the disk version of the configuration program, to set the game to run in Direct Draw mode. Rename or move the existing configtool.exe and NlsEng.dll files in the install folder, and extract the disk versions from
this zip file.
Note that this will also reset the game resolution to what the disk version supported, but you can manually edit the config.div file (in a text editor, like Notepad) to change the resolution.