It is possible to install the proprietary NVidia driver also using a live cd (the problem is that a reboot may be needed and as you may already guess, after reboot the live system starts from scratch)... so live cds may not be the perfect solution, also difficult for "only-testing" purposes
After you get the Nvidia driver installed you need to run cudaHashcat64.bin (or 32 bin if the The-Distribution-Which-Does-Not-Handle-OpenCL-Well (Kali) version is 32 bit only).
oclHashcat64.bin is for AMD GPUs
As far as I know, it is still not possible to get full VGA/GPU hardware access w/ Vmware, therefore cudaHashcat cannot access your GPU directly w/ vmware...
There may be some other virtual machine systems that allow the direct access, but it complicates the problem only more and more...
And yes, you can run cudaHashcat64.exe if you use windows
After you get the Nvidia driver installed you need to run cudaHashcat64.bin (or 32 bin if the The-Distribution-Which-Does-Not-Handle-OpenCL-Well (Kali) version is 32 bit only).
oclHashcat64.bin is for AMD GPUs
As far as I know, it is still not possible to get full VGA/GPU hardware access w/ Vmware, therefore cudaHashcat cannot access your GPU directly w/ vmware...
There may be some other virtual machine systems that allow the direct access, but it complicates the problem only more and more...
And yes, you can run cudaHashcat64.exe if you use windows