The asterisk next to a method name in the Method Gallery indicates that the method's parameters were manually set and remain manually set until you reset them to be optimized automatically. You can change a method's parameters to by optimized by double-clicking on the method in the Method Gallery and selecting the Automatic option, and clicking on OK. Automatic is the default parameter setting.

Having user-defined settings, limits the method greatly. Only advanced users should manually set the method parameters.