does anyone know if when you're in the wasteland, you'll be able to see all of the structures in the distance or do they magically appear like a mirage when you get close enough

If you are on the console versions, although they said they worked on improving view distances, you won't be able to get a very long view distance. However, on the PC, the sliders can go much higher than what they are on consoles. And they can probably be tweaked further in the ini.

Edit: Speculation on my part based on videos we've seen. I haven't played the game.

They'll do at least what FO3 did. If they don't, then I'm dissapointed in Obsidian.

In other words, yes and no; depending on the size/importance of the building and personal settings.

From playing FO3 on the PC, unless I was down a hill, I could almost always see the 4 chimneys of one of the power plants near the middle of the map when I was up North. I enjoyed using it as a reference point.

Just watched a stream (no I won't link it!) and the pop in was the same as it was in FO3... as the player approached the Saloon in Goodsprings, the neon sign appeared in mid-air somewhere around 100 yards.

Huh, I never had a problem with that when playing F3 on the PS3. Maybe I'm just not very observant? :shrug:
I've seen a stream of someone playing FNV on the Xbox and I think Obsidian improved on it at least. It was difficult to make out in such a tiny window, mind.

When I played it you could see pretty far away but there were mountains in the distance so I'm not sure on the extent exactly.

The draw distance is going to be the same on all three platforms. It always is with multiplatform releases, since most of the stuff that you see in the distance is just a render anyway. Anybody who wants to debate that can go watch some HD videos of Fallout 3 in action, because I'm not for it.

So to answer your question, no stuff will not just appear out of nowhere.

Can you change the draw distance on the PC version? I dont think i ever tried in Fallout 3. I thought i remembered being able to shoot at creatures from far away in FO3 and it wouldnt have any effect until i got closer. I know thats another issue but would have to be addressed at the same time.

Yeah you probably can to some degree. You can usually fiddle with stuff like that on PC games.

When I said draw distance in my previous post, that's not actually what I meant btw lol. I wasn't thinking. If I'm not mistaken the draw distance is the point where the game swaps out the render for the actual thing. The PC version will have a further draw distance. What I was trying to get at is that it doesn't matter, since virtually everything will be rendered anyway.

The only noticeable difference will be that people playing the PC version will be able to see enemies (Since enemies don't get rendered. That would be stupid lol) from a bit further away than they would on the Xbox or PS3 version.

The only downside to that is that sometimes on the PC, like you've said, you'll be able to see an enemy but you wont be able to attack them. Whereas on the Xbox and PS3 the draw distance is the same as (or possibly less than) the maximum range for the weapons.

A GTX 260/Radeon 4870 or above video card should let you set all the settings to max and get you an average frame rate of 50 to 60 up to 1920 x 1200 resolution. Even on 2560 x 1600 resolution, the frame rate should stay above 30.