messiah 2 or the magic 3???

[Camui]

i know how messiah 2 is suggested to be the best on this board, but.............it died one me.
so thats why i wanted to ask, since for me, messiah 2 seemed pretty unreliable. right now i have a magic 3.1 as well, and its working great, except there is one slight problem......it won't play anti-mod psx imports (FFVIII) but i guess its ok, since its a pretty outdated game. if anyone knows how to by pass this, please do tell.