The display settings (Samsung syncmaster 793) can be set variously:
physical buttons on moniter
display properties
radeon 9600 properties
magic tune: software that came with the monitor, you can use the mouse to make adjustments rather than pressing the buttons.

Question: if the comp crashes, or locks up and you have to kill the power and re-boot; where is the comp going to look for the right display settings, i.e. which of those 4 will have priority?

Regards,
Poet
I think your question does not make much sense. You're really implying that these various methods of controlling your display are competing with each other for CONTROL rights or something like that. That's not the case. To the contrary, they work together. If they caused conflict, you WOULD probably see signs such as lock ups, error messages, and degraded performance.

I also have several ways to change display settings. If I change resolution via nVidia's software and then open Windows Display Properties, I'll see the same resolution there, not a different resolution that was previously via Windows Display Properties. Windows Display Properties accepted the change made via nVidia's software. No internal conflicts. No, that's not at all what i meant. There is no conflict. I'm not implying anything, i'm speaking plainly. I'm saying there's 4 ways to do one thing, is one better than the other? Does one way preserve settings better than the rest?

PoetThe less tweaking you do at the computer end, the less you are asking of your PC's processor and the graphics processor. Personally therefore, I would use display properties to set the resolution, then the monitor settings to tweak brightness, contrast, shape, position etc. Only if those results were not satisfactory would I then go to explore your other two possibilities.

But that's just one opinion.In Windows, there are generally umpteen different ways of doing just about anything. Whether that's for better or for worse, I'm not sure. First i'd like to say to Backdated, you have hit the nail right on the head. And i've seen that very fact create confusion and/or hesitation in others and for myself sometimes.

And to Rob, no the results are indeed fine, i simply -and i feel like an idiot talking about this simplistic stuff- don't know how to get a specific result. Brighter or darker, well that's easy but we grew up with having a brightness adjuster on our tv sets, so that's familiar.
So i go to Wikipedia and it explains to me what Barrel DISTORTION is, that was cool, but doesn't tell me how to flatten it out. Ach. The top of my display is wider than the bottom. So there's a pictogram of a trapazoid, so i think okay if i turn it to the right it'll set the width of the top, if i turn it to the left it will set the width of the bottom. That seems logical. Only it doesn't effect the bottom. Now this is where i get frustrated: why is there a control specific to the width only of the top, but NOT a corresponding control specific to the width only of the bottom? This is piddley little stuff is what DRIVES me nuts!! Frell!

Once upon a time computers were easy and fun. There were manuals that talked about things in simple English, there were controls that were simple and even logical: for DELETE press Control & D, for Copy press Control & C. See? Logical, easy.
Alas for the days of yesteryear; now there are pictograms (what am i, a caveman reading off the wall?) that just give me a migraine.

Poet