This is on WoW Anniversary and WoW Classic Era.
Mobs and players don’t pop into view until about 50 yards away, sometimes rarely, 70 yards. You could in Vanilla, go to the service gate section of Stratholme and use /target Stonespine behind the Chapel there and you would get him if he spawned. You can’t do that in Classic as he never gets drawn even if he is in the zone, until you go through the second service gate and get into the pitiful 50 yard range for him too pop into view. You could also /target Shrieking Banshee in Vanilla behind the Chapel and it would target those as they are always in the instance…But you can’t do that on Classic behind the Chapel, which proves the render distance has been lowered to what Retail is.
Here is a Vanilla PVP video showing a enemy player in World PVP loading in at about 120 to 150 yards away. Way more than enough time for the Mage to keep his eye on him as he comes in to try and help his sheeped buddy. In Classic, you would see him pop into view at 50 and maybe at best 70 yards, which is nowhere close to what Vanilla was like.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGDKrAgRyiY&t=591s)
The range in this video is even more severe - you can see a friendly player in Arathi Basin at about 200 yards away, and it’s on flat terrain, not up on hill looking down. It’s blurry but it’s there. Look at the mini map at the 11:31 to 11:32 mark in the video, right to the left of the RA addon that he has on the side of the mini map, you will see the player far off in the distance. It is slightly blurry due to the low res of this old PVP video but it’s a definitely a player. Classic WoW’s range is not like this at all.