Curious about virtual serial ports

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

I do phone tech support and have to deal with software created virtual ports for pc faxing and the like. How important is a free serial port, enabled in the bios?

As I understand if there are not enough IRQ's on the system (being broadcast to the OS) a virtual port might create but would have trouble functioning...

Any ideas?

This is a little off bios theme... but I would look here ot start with..... http://www.lvr.com/serport.htm

Sorry if I'm a bit OT - I'm new here

Thanks for the link btw