Techniques for emulating geometry shaders and stream output using compute shaders are provided. In one set of embodiments, a geometry shader/stream output (GS/SO) emulation module can receive a geometry shader defined by an application for execution via a geometry shader stage of a graphics processing unit (GPU) of a computer system, where the geometry shader comprises program code for processing an input primitive. The GS/SO emulation module can further convert the geometry shader into one or more compute shaders, where the one or more compute shaders incorporate the program code of the geometry shader. The GS/SO emulation module can then issue the one or more compute shaders to a graphics driver of the computer system for execution via a compute shader stage of the GPU.