Nope, mouse + keyboard all the time, no gamepads except for consoles, ever...
1. 3D Analyzer (and/or DgVoodoo IIRC) doesn't have much options regarding framerate manipulation, but have been very powerful in other aspects of games' support. OTOH DXwnd (dunno which is better, official or custom build by Old-Games.RU) has a confusing interface but if understood it can be (almost) a master of all trades. There are other tools that work with framerates and CPU cycles but I keep forgetting of 'em, lurk on VOGONS or elsewhere, since NARC has no page on either WSGF or PCGamingWiki...
2. Yes, game recorders (including FRAPS which was known for doing such a thing but is EOL'd
) can interact with game engines and force those to the recorder's bidding (in the same manner of VSync being turned off ingame but either the GPU or OS can still force 'cause hierarchy), albeit it must be tested per game, there may be tools that do just that without recording and filling yer HDD space but as said before,
& VOGONS are yer friends...
3. Depends if a port of a title is crap enough for the workaround to actually take effect, Resident Evil 2 is old and runs like crap on XP with 20FPS, someone accidentally left WMP open (version doesn't matter) and it has been looked for a while as some kind of a miracle cure for crap ports of older titles. TL;DR just try, if working then yippie, else try something else
4. I'll shitpost another possible cause here, see if your monitor's refresh rate is set to 60hz (OS, not game, or maybe even the game, just try both of those as well)...
As usual, verify and modify, and good luck in doing so
Windows is shutting down