Nvidia provides a proprietary driver for the system. Live distors would not have it installed, since there are many drivers for Nvidia, and ATI GPU's.
There are lots of posts about these drivers, since not all users are familiar with how to get, or install the drivers. This also varies from distro to distro. SOme provide a driver in a package, some do not, and leave it up to the user to download the driver from the manufacturers web site, install and configure it.
I use Nvidia drivers on SLackware. It takes about 5 minutes to install, once downloaded. Works for me on my system. I do have some what older hardware, since my system is now about two years old.
So, specific solution... Go here -->
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
See if your hardware is supported before you install. i would be very surprised if it were not supported. then look into what ever distro you plan on using, and find out if they supply Nvidia packages, or if you get them directly from Nvidia for installation.