Can i use a disk with an emulator?

hey guys im very new to this emulator stuff and was wondering if i downloaded a ps1 emulator would i be able to use the original ffviii for ps1 disk in my pc? thanks :)

Disk access is rather slow due to console disc drives been faster at reading.
The best option is to rip your PS1 disc into a .BIN format and make a folder named games to save them into.
Reading the .Bin image is alot faster and will improve load times.

To answer your question, yes you can. Load times would be noticeably faster converting the disc to a .bin, however if you lack the harddrive space it will work just fine sticking the disc in the drive and playing it from there. As far as console drives being faster at reading, you cannot go faster that 54x without the disc spinning itself apart (which is why disc drives only go up to 54x for cd's)

Console drives are not "faster" at loading. In fact the PSX was quite slow in its loading times.
The reason disc access is especially slow on PC's is because of the differing operating methods of PC drives vs console drives.

The primary difference being that console drives constantly keep Disc spinning, but at a low speed RPM. However developers can work with that RPM Range in mind and develop optimization routines to help the drive load data at optimal efficiency.

CD/DVD drives in a PC on the other hand, spin up and down depending on activity, as well as what they are reading. There are probably some more specific issues as far as emulation of the CD drive is concerned, but I can assure you it is not because the console drives are "faster" than PC drives.

Having a disc image speeds things up because it takes advantage of the much faster rotational speed and higher bandwidth that computer Hard Disk Drives are capable of.

if that disk is an original.And you bought it.Than you can make a virtual image using Alcoholol 120%,Daemon Tools or any other image creating software.
but if you are going to make the image make it in Bin,Cue image format.