What's weird about the poor FPS thing is that if I run a YouTube video in the background at 1080p, the FPS is perfect in Zelda Classic/ZQuest. It's a very weird workaround, but it's better than a game running like trying to play DooM (2016) with a 4 year old laptop you bought for $500. Basically, enter Microsoft PowerPoint mode.
So for those more tech savvy than myself, what is the technical reason for ZQuest and Zelda Classic running awful unless I play a 1080p video in the background? It's perfectly smooth until I stop the video. Then it's back to unplayable after a short while.