The new SOLAS regulation permits the alternative design approach for the approval of designs which deviate from those where prescriptive rules apply. The new approach is being promoted by recent advances of noble designs such as those employing large public spaces in passenger ships. From the respect of fire safety, it is needed to show that the level of safety of new design is equivalent to what can be achieved from the prescriptive rules where the fire simulation is regarded to be the essential tool. This paper provides an overview of the process of performance-based design of the smoke extraction system in a cafeteria of a ROPAX. FDS, a CFD fire simulation software is used to show that the field-model software can improve the fire safety over what are expected from prescriptive rule sets or zone-model application.