Final Fantasy VIII (E) (Disc 1) ISO
[SLES-02080]

Ignore the above description, please. First of all, this is Final Fantasy 8, not 7. Second, whether the region code of a rom/iso isn't going to affect the lagginess/choppiness of a game, provided you're running it on an emulator that supports that region. The region will only affect whether or not the game plays; it won't affect the quality of the game. Any choppiness in the game will be a fault of the emulator and/or the graphics plugin. I pretty much have one plug-in for each of the Final Fantasy PSX games, since each one runs best with different settings and on a different emulator. Anyway, the game:
Final Fantasy 8 gets a lot of hate, because it devolves (or evolves, depending on your perspective) into little more than a love story around Disc 2. The "big bad guy" consistently changes, and the result is that each disc is pretty much dedicated to taking down a different bad guy. This wasn't a problem for me, nor was the fact that it's 90% a love story between Squall and Rinoa. The love story, though it gets really, really out there (literally, out there in space), is done exceptionally well, and if you aren't careful, you may find yourself falling in love with Rinoa yourself.
Like the other PSX FF games, 8 has its own unique Ability/Class system, and 8's revolves around Guardian Forces, called GFs. They're Summons from 7/Espers from 6/Phantom Beasts from 4. You equip them to characters as though they were equipment, and the GF levels and gains new abilities to AP that you can then add to your character.
For example, Ifrit allows you to Junction magic spells to your Strength stat after 80 or so AP is earned. By navigating through menus and junctioning, say, Ultima to your Strength, your Strength score will increase. Because of all the ways you can modify your characters by junctioning GFs and Magic, Equipment takes a seat at the very back of the bus and is barely present at all. Not only do you upgrade weapons (similar to Synthesis shops in IX, but requiring items like Screws and stuff), but most of the time the stuff you need is extremely rare or must be stolen, so if you don't have a guide, you're likely to finish the game with your starting weapons. If I remember correctly, there's no armor in the game at all. 
Unlike other FF games, you do not earn Gil from battles. Instead, you'll periodically receive Gil based on your SeeD level. Your SeeD level is an amalgamation of how well you do in the game (different missions will affect your SeeD level, so if you do good, your SeeD level will increase) and how well you know the game (you can take Tests through the menu that will raise your SeeD level upon successful completion--there are plenty of guides online to the tests, but since they're all True/False, it's not hard to just use process of elimination to pass them all).
Final Fantasy 8 has remarkably few sidequests in comparison to 7 or 9, but it does have Triple Triad, which is the best card game that Squaresoft (later Square-Enix) has ever put into a game. They could have just released a GBA game called "Triple Triad" and plenty of people would have bought it. The rules aren't as complex as the card game of 9's, but this also means that you can actually understand the rules. Last time I checked, no one had yet figured out the underlying formulas/rules of 9's card game.
If you're on a quest to experience (or re-experience) these classic games that people frequently list as the best ever made, then this should definitely be your second choice from the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy VI (6), of course, should be your first choice, as it's easily the best of the bunch (and 7 is basically a carbon-copy of 6 that is only expanded for the more-capable PSX, modified characters, and a slightly modified [only slightly] class/ability system). I wouldn't go so far as to say that VIII is the second-best of them, but it allows for FULL customisation of your characters, and is hands-down better than 9, since FF9 began the process of destroying the consequences of player choices in abilities. Avoid FF1 and FF2--they were good for their time, but they're so deprecated now that you'd be better off just banging your head against a wall while someone reads you various Japanglish sentences.

Played this on the HTC evo 4g and it was pretty laggie.  I was running it using the Psx4drid with defult settings and it was running at 50fps.  If you want to play FF7 play with the NTSC-U version.