Render Distance Lowered?

[Ace0fBlades]

I've noticed recently scenery objects have been displaying their low res model from a seemingly much shorter distance. For example i've got two statues at the door of my dojo's dueling room, from the center of the dueling ring these statues look like play-doh lumps. (obviously they look fine when right next to them, but that isn't the issue) Aside from motion-blur and phys-x all my graphics settings are on and both texture and shadows are getting high RAM usage. Any ideas or has it always been like this?

 

specs: AMD Fx-8320 8 core 3.7 ghz

            Radeon 7870

            8 gigs ddr3 1800 RAM