basically, there is a "setting" table that store "officially" the settings you set on the adminCP... but in the essence, these settings are stored in the cache called "datastore", so they are loaded quicly at the startup of the process... they can also be stored in the datastore_file if you decide to store them in file... (complicated part)...

even if you edit the "setting" table with your proper detail, the board will continue to read the datastore element only, so you have to enter your admincp and save a setting to make the update.