First, about the crash - I had the same problem, and solved it by switching emulators to sssPSX. The crash does not occur for me with that emulator. There are other drawbacks to using sssPSX:
(1) There is no English documentation. Learn to read Japanese if you want to read the docs (though Google does a pretty good job translating the project website).
(2) It doesn't work as well with some games (for instance, Resident Evil 3 lacks voiceovers).
(3) While it uses PS Emu Pro compatible plugins, it doesn't use the corresponding standard for choosing which plugins to use, so frontends like ePSXeCutor are of limited use with it.
(4) Because of point 1, I haven't been able to figure out how to launch a game without going through its GUI.
On the other hand, Driver doesn't crash in it!
Now, as for plugin settings...I don't know what's the best, but I can tell you what I use:
GPU: Pete's OpenGL2 2.7
Fullscreen 1200x1200 32bit color
Keep PSX Aspect Ratio: unchecked
Internal X resolution: 1 - High
Internal Y resolution: 2 - Very High
No render to texture: unchecked
Texture filtering: 6 - Extended + smoothed
Hi-Res textures: 2 - Stretched
Gfx card vram: 0 (autodetect)
Use pixel shader: checked
Show FPS: unchecked
Use FPS limit: checked
FPS limit: 60.0
Off-screen drawing: 2 - Extended
Framebuffer effected: 3 - Full
Framebuffer upload: 1 - Standard
Screen filtering: checked
Shader effects: checked, 4 - GLSlang smoothing
Flicker-fix border: 0
Shader level: 4 - maximum
Scanlines: unchecked
MDEC filter: checked
Disable screensaver: unchecked
GF4 crash fix: unchecked
Special game fixes: unchecked
SPU: Eternal 1.41
Audio device: DirectSound
Buffer size: 64
Audio out: SPUasync
Async mode: Smooth
All available checkboxes: unchecked
Fine tune: 0
Reverb: Neill's
CDROM: Mooby2 2.8
Checkboxes: unchecked
CDDA volume: .6
Cache size: 1
Gamepad: sssPSX Pad Plugin 1.6
configured to work with my Dualshock2 + Radioshack USB adapter (Rumble works!)
BIOS: SCPH1001.BIN
Dan
