Is it just me, or are textures and models supposed to abruptly change to higher quality (gradually a few times) when you move nearer? I don't remember it happening when I played the original JK release, at least not this drastically. Maybe I remember wrong. But the highest resolution for surfaces seems to kick in only when you're just a few steps away.

Edit: It seems that indoors the problem isn't nearly as bad. The textures simply remain better for further distances while indoors.

Got back to this issue...

Alright, maybe I'm just remembering wrong. :) I noticed that looking from a distance, the character models look like they're formed of flat sprites, these really wonky looking cardboard-like structures instead of the truly 3D limbs that they show when you're up close. Their heads are also oriented somehow weirdly sometimes. And when you move up close, they shift into better actual models. This is something I had totally forgotten about, I've seen it in some other games but I never thought this game did that.

Someone on the Steam forum made a LOD mod:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/32380/discussions/0/615085406669206428/