is it possible to render distant objects in lower quality? I was wondering if there is the possibility to render distant objects in lower quality than the ones that are closer to the camera.
Set Render Engine to Cycles and Feature Set to Experimental.
There will be a checkbox for Adaptive Subdivision in SubSurf modifier. This is what you want.
Blender Doc: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/object_settings/adaptive_subdiv.html