NOTE:This thread is made specifically with ePSXe in mind, if you use any other emulator, please, let me know and I'll try to help you out. Also, this should be made into a sticky.

I was thinking for a moment that there's a bunch of threads regarding FF games(specifically the PSX ones). And, I have decided to add this thread to place some tips here so that people don't have the need to make a new thread and wait for a response(which doesn't takes that long, really).

Ok, I'll start off by mentioning the number one problem people have with the games, the "black screen". This is due to the fact that the FF games have "really powerful graphics" if I may say so, so you need to configure your video settings this way:
1.Choose a plugin, (I'd suggest Pete's 3D6).
2.After that, click on "Configure" and look at the bottom left part of the window, you'll see two buttons that say "Fast" and "Nice".
3.If you want to play and you don't care how ugly it looks, then click on Fast, but if you want to play with "nice" graphics, then click on Nice.
4.If you click nice, and you are having problems with the game, just change the Resolution from 32mb to 16 and that should fix everything while still having pretty nice graphics.

If you have any questions regarding FF games, just ask them here and I'l reply(or someone else) A.S.A.P. And now I must say goodbye, but I'll say see ya lata!!!

not a bad go of it, but we'll see how many user with issues post in here first
i must mention again the ePSXe setup i laid out as alot still miss on those basic points first: https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=4062

another problem that some have. a Final Fantasy game has a weird .ecm extension:

you must decompress the ecm file.
get this tool: http://www.neillcorlett.com/downloads/ecm100.zip
copy and paste the link to get the file.

extract the tool to a folder. drag the Final Fantasy .ecm file onto the "unecm.exe" executable and it will decompress into a .bin or .img file, for example.
the new file will work in epsxe. you can delete the Final Fantasy .ecm" file now as you dont need it anymore.
just put the new img file in the same folder with your other game files.

mojo has mentioned before that you can just delete the .ecm from the end of the file and "it switches it without having to decode it with the program".
others users though have mentioned that even if they remove the .ecm file from the end of games that they still dont work, but the file works when they decompress it.

so better to be safe then sorry

more info to come later

Also, something I'd like to add, FF9(and many other games), once they are decompressed two times(once to unite the parts, and another one to get the real ISO file), you will see a WinRAR file and some think that they need to decompress it again, DON'T WORRY, it'll work fine if you use that file, since the game will start anyway, and thank you, Dark, for the extra info, I knew I was missing some points, but I didn't wanted to go through all the threads to get the links you've posted before.

Can you help me with this?

i'll post the answer here too ChibisaurusRex, but dont reply to both threads just replay to one of them. asking/answering once is normally enough

open ePSXe. click the word Config in the menu. click Video from the drop down list.
click the top Configure button (this is the button directly below the name of plugin) on the new box.
in the bottom left corner of the window/page that opens click the button that says Nice.
click the button that says ok then click the button that says ok on the box as well.