FF8 issues

[candlemaster]

I recently downloaded ePSXe 1.6.0 and the first disc for Final Fantasy VIII, and finally got it to actually work. Just a couple of issues to work out though.

First; The battle-swirly thingy (is that the technical term?) that transitions into the battle sequences does not show up, and it slows down the game considerably.

Second; The battle menu does not appear. I can hear the sounds that play when you move the cursor around, but I can't see anything.

I am running WinME with 160MB RAM, 700mhz processor, and a 5-year old Nvidia Vanta video card. I'm using ePSXe 1.6.0 with Pete's DX6 D3D Driver 1.76.

[woodman]

Increase the offscreen drawing and framebuffer Options in your Video Plugin Config.
Also, there are some options in the Special Game Fixes of the Video Plugin as well..

[candlemaster]

I changed the offscreen drawing from 1 to 3, and now I can see the battle menus. Thanks a ton!

Now I just need to solve the battle-swirly-thingy. The plugin has special fixes for FF7 and 9, but no 8.

[Cookie Monster]

Use ePSXe 1.52, it's recommended for square games.

[SegNin]

About the battle-swirl:

There is a way to get it, but...

Well, see for yourself:
http://www.lordkane.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=477.0

Get the OpenGL2 plugin from here:
http://www.pbernert.com/html/gpu.htm#OGL2

If you get some weird error about WGL extensions, then your graphics card isn't good enough for OpenGL2.