Composition window "flickers" when playing

I dabble in motion graphics for my job and don't know how to deal with this problem. When I play my project the composition window flickers between the two screens shown below:

It alternates every frame, looks like a movie playing at a low shutter speed. You can actually see the file as it plays but I couldn't get a shot of that. I've tried adjusting the Video and Render Effects, using different files, toggling everything while the footage plays, and uninstalling and reinstalling the program without any of the previous information, but it still ends up like this. I just did a reinstall, tried putting together the Apeak tutorial, and a few steps in it started flickering again. I don't know enough about the program to troubleshoot beyond this point and apologize if my description is vague.