[Princess Garnet]

The CPU and RAM are fine for ePSXe. Buying more RAM won't help (but may overall in general, as 480MB is pretty low, especially since it appears that onboard GPU taking 32MB of it from your 512MB total). It's the onboard GPU that's the weak link and hurting the performance in ePSXe.

You can fix this, though, without hardware changes. You need to get a plug-in and configuration that your system can handle.

First, if you're using version 2.9 of Pete's OpenGL plugin, which I'd suspect you are, switch to version 1.76. I know it sounds like I'm telling you to go with an outdated plug-in, but the 1.x and 2.x versions are really separate lines from one another. OpenGL2 needs a decent GPU. Try the OpenGL (1) plug-in, and give these settings a try.

It's your choice on full screen or windowed, but if you're using an LCD, I'd go windowed.

If that's still too slow, try either the Direct3D or P.E.Op.S Soft Driver.

Note that the latter uses software rendering, so the image will not be enhanced via hardware effects. It'll look like it does on the actual console.

It may also help (but isn't totally necessary) if you list which game(s) you're trying to get working, as some work better with some configurations.

 

[Princess Garnet]

If your GPU can't handle OpenGL (1), and you'd rather not use software plug-ins, you're really stuck with Direct3D, but be aware that it's pretty old, and lacks the compatibility that OpenGL does. That being said, Final Fantasy VIII is a difficult game to get working perfectly, moreso on older hardware, even in OpenGL. I know my settings would be good for, say, Final Fantasy IX (and probably Final Fantasy VII), Gran Turismo, Resident Evil games, and so on, but Final Fantasy VIII is a special one. The Legend of Dragoon is the same way with it's battle transitions (I think there's a special game fix for it), if I remember right.

I don't have the perfect configuration down yet, but I just tried this with Final Fantasy VIII and Direct3D, so see what it nets you.

I only tried starting a new game, and doing a few battles. The transitions didn't slow for me, and looked okay (though it's probably not the full thing with the framebuffer options set the way they are). I did notice one thing. When leaving the Fire Cavern to return to the world map, there was a five second delay. I'd imagine there's a fade there that doesn't show since the framebuffer settings are so low, but the fade going into the Fire Cavern works fine. Ah well, with the framebuffer effects emulated, there's bound to be quirks, but that shouldn't be a demanding configuration, and I doubt your GPU will ever pull off all the effects full speed.