Maximum render distance is still 8 chunks at least for 32-bit OS. I'm not so sure about that, because in people say that in previous versions "Far" render distance wasn't working for 32-bit systems even if it could be turned on. Warning message that appeared said that 64-bit Java is recommended, but not required and still Far was working fine. This is a continuation of MC-34645. It would be good if some dev could confirm any of these speculations.