Nah really the games I play on 64 generally don't have fog. All the rare platformers, , zelda rayman star wars naboo DK racing etc. etc. Games like spyro were pretty rare in terms of draw distance early on. Look at the horrible pop up in the wipeout games.
We have games like rayman 2 where not only were the visuals greatly diminished on playstation but levels had to be cut up into chunks, and even on the high res mode on 64 it runs fine. Even bigger games like Tooie would fare even worse on PS. CD's provided 0 benefit to graphics and the actual game data not including audio and fmv was comparable to cart sizes.
As I said if you look at the paper specs, DC > N64 is indeed a bigger jump but yes, in terms of going from an unstable pixelated mess to 64, I find that a bigger jump than 64 to DC. I really think some people like to pump up playstation because carts *feel* old, and they then do mental gymnastics around that to make it seem like 64 is weaker than it is. If the 64 had cds we wouldn't even be talking about this because the developers like square, and a better public perception would have been present.
There are games that suffered greatly on the N64 too such us many major racing franchise of the PS1 that found its way on the N64. Games like Quake 2 had a noticeable hit on texture quality. Basically, depending on the game, some were better on the N64 some better on PS1.
For example this case. Polugon numbers a detail on the N64 took a hit, but has a cleaner image. Pop up on the PS1 was replaced with a gradual fading on the n64. It looks like the PS1 has a bigger draw distance too.
The PS1 improved hugely the draw distance later on. Wipeout 3 Special Edition for example has the same tracks as Wipeout 1 and you can clearly see a huge improvement in draw distance, you can barely spot a pop up. Ridge Racer Type 4 was one of the finest titles technically in that respect in addition to Wipeout 1.
That said, the N64 did have improvements in many areas that made it's games age much better than the PS1. Games that were designed with the n64's hardware in mind showed a quality that was unmatched by the PS1 such as Zelda.
But I disagree totally about the leap between the PS1->N64 vas N64->DC. The PS1 could compete the N64 here and there depending on the games. But neither came close to the DC. The difference the DC offered was huge not just on paper.
Polygon numbers per second reached milions, textures finally looked like their real life counterparts, lighting effects were on a different level, and a great deal of its games were running on 60fps.
The DC was a real next generational leap, whereas the N64 was a 1.5 leap.
