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no problem, I had a feeling it was going to be as you said. Maybe i'll dual boot, then like you said, I could get the most out of my hardware. Thank you for the help.
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It's getting better, however, nVidia are spending more time we understand optimizing their drivers for Linux, and not Windoze! aka Steam OS, SteamBox etc<br />
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so depends if this is a gaming rig,.......you need the performance for.<br />
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BUT, at present.....but future Virtual will be able to use it!
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On VMware still make sure you have installed the VMware Tools within the VM. Or in VirtualBox the VBox additions. These will ensure that you have the best virtual drivers installed, and in VBox USB should then work (provided you aren't using the same USB device at the same time in your Host OS).
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sorry rindi, I accepted Andrew Hancock's answer before I saw your contribution.
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@JeffBeall That's because he posted, After the question was closed!!!! and you selected My Answer!<br />
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You Closed and Selected at 2014-11-10 at 00:21:54<br />
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Rindi Comment at 2014-11-10 at 08:31:32<br />
<br />
His comment, was not present, when you closed out!
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Yes, correct, I saw the Question was closed already, but thought it was important to add that info.
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
on my main computer I tried lubuntu - and LOVE how it runs - I'm guessing since lubuntu is lightweight and I have a lot of &quot;horsepower&quot; it runs really fast - ( pent i5, 16gb ram, solid state drive, Geforce GTX 650ti )<br />
so I thought I there still might be times I would need windows. So I tried virtualbox, and vmware. virtualbox was very good, but I, for the life of me, couldn't get usb flash drives to work. So I try vwmare player and everything works fine - I am running win8 with no problems. I did notice that the video is a standard video driver. I have a GeForce GTX 650ti and would like to use the full capabilities - however, since win8 is in a virtual environment, i thought that it might not be possible to install the correct drivers. I figured as far as windows can tell, it has a generic video card because it is a virtual computer. <br />
IS that the case? Would i not be able to use the correct drivers?
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on my main computer I tried lubuntu - and LOVE how it runs - I'm guessing since lubuntu is lightweight and I have a lot of "horsepower" it runs really fast - ( pent i5, 16gb ram, solid state drive, Geforce GTX 650ti )
so I thought I there still might be times I would need windows. So I tried virtualbox, and vmware. virtualbox was very good, but I, for the life of me, couldn't get usb flash drives to work. So I try vwmare player and everything works fine - I am running win8 with no problems. I did notice that the video is a standard video driver. I have a GeForce GTX 650ti and would like to use the full capabilities - however, since win8 is in a virtual environment, i thought that it might not be possible to install the correct drivers. I figured as far as windows can tell, it has a generic video card because it is a virtual computer. 
IS that the case? Would i not be able to use the correct drivers?

vmware on linux

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Linux is a UNIX-like open source operating system with hundreds of distinct distributions, including: Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, CentOS, and Arch Linux. Linux is generally associated with web and database servers, but has become popular in many niche industries and applications.

Linux

Windows 8 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems, with an emphasis on improving its user experience on tablets. In particular, these changes included a touch-optimized Windows shell based on Microsoft's "Metro" design language, the Start screen, a new platform for developing apps with an emphasis on touchscreen input, integration with online services, support for USB 3.0, Advanced Format hard drives, near field communications, and cloud computing. Additional security features were introduced, such as built-in antivirus software, integration with Microsoft SmartScreen phishing filtering service and support for UEFI Secure Boot on supported devices with UEFI firmware.