Just xrandr for me.
I don't use vmware, but for virtualbox I have "vesa 0x160" added to /boot.cfg to the boot normally line:
menu=Boot normally:vesa 0x160;rndseed /var/db/entropy-file;boot
With that, I don't need to use xrandr and I can have a full-screen console that uses my whole 1920x1080 monitor -without having to run X. I decided on that by running "vesa test" from the boot prompt on startup and picking out the resolution I wanted.
I don't see why the same idea wouldn't work on vmware but I can't try it at the moment.