Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
It might fix some performance issues. (in the sense that it improves performance)

Describe the solution you'd like
Add an animation render distance setting. It goes from 2 chunks to your current normal render distance setting. Animations outside of the set render distance pause/reset until you move closer.

Describe alternatives you've considered
An option to disable animations altogether, but that was closed in #166.
A block by block animation render distance setting. This would most likely be a lot harder though.

Do you have data that suggests animated textures are a significant issue still with all the optimizations we implement?

They aren't a big performance hitter (especially with Sodium's optimizations) and this would probably only help really low-end PCs in the long run. This request can be closed if the idea isn't practical.