Anti-Aliasing (eg MSAA) and Anisotropic Filtering: For faster FPS or better visuals

[windsurfingstew]

Sorry for the newbie question. I've read quite a bit on both of these but am still a bit confused as to whether enabling an anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering will:

1) For the same other settings, improve visuals but tend to decrease frame rate

OR

2) For the same other settings, reduce quality of visuals but tend to increase frame rate

[kksnowbear]

The former.  The reason for this is the extra work the GPU must do in order to improve the visuals, by doing things like sampling edges 2-8 times more (for AA) etc.  Thus, the GPU takes more time to produce a screen full (frame) of data, and more time per frame equals less frames-per-unit-time (i.e., "FPS" or frame rate)

HTH