I have some renders that take a long time, and when I want to do a lot of them, there's considerable time wasted in between renders if I leave that computer to do other nearby tasks. Does Vegas have the option to play a chime or a sound to alert me when it has finished its render task?

No, Vegas doesn't have any means of sounding an "alarm" saying it's done rendering. However, if you have several renders you need done, you might consider using a batch render program which would be able to do several renders back to back. Tools - Scripting - Batch Render would be a good starting place.

OK, on to Plan B. When it's rendering, Vegas uses virtually 100% of my processor cycles. Is there any little freeware utility out there that can detect if my System Idle Process uses up a number of cycles above some threshold and will then sound an alarm?

Don't know a specific program, but you could try searching for scripts under Windows Script Host. I've used WSH a few times to create VB programs that monitor servers for certain events. Like when an FTP upload/download completes, a database finishes backing up, or a particular program is no longer running etc.

There's also something called WinBatch, but I'm not sure how sophisticated it is.

I've heard of some people using a program to shut down their system after the cpu cycles dropped below a certain amount for a specific length of time. I don't remember the name of the program they were using, though.

I seem to remember that sqite a while ago, someone on the Sony Vegas forum wrote a script or filter plugin to do just this; beep at the end of a render. I'll poke around and see if I can find it.

Also, the shut-down program based on CPU cycles is here:

http://www.ampsoft.net/utilities/WinOFF.php

Someone did write a script or small program for this
a while back.

try this vegasist

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=486292

Since we’re on the general subject, does anyone know how to turn off the “over 80 percent needs to render, do you want to proceed” warning when doing something like printing to tape? It’s burned me SO many times.

Since we’re on the general subject, does anyone know how to turn off the “over 80 percent needs to render, do you want to proceed” warning when doing something like printing to tape? It’s burned me SO many times.

Don't change more than 80% of the project???? :-)

That would make things easier wouldn't it Mr. Troxel :)

Most of the time that happens when I drop video in from somewhere like Premiere into Vegas so I can add a bug or watermark. I process a lot of video some days, and when ever I am in a hurry and hit print to tape and forget to wait for the warning to pop up, I come back an hour or two later, and there is that warning just sitting their mocking me :(

Yeah, adding a bug will definitely do it. I just sit and wait until it goes through the first progress bar to see what pops up before it goes on.