Is Red Eye Orb only usable while in Darkwraith covenant

Found a solution on the Steam game hub..(scroll to bottom) http://steamcommunity.com/app/211420/discussions/0/882959061668056366?insideModal=1

Also, a more detailed source..(tip #5) http://segmentnext.com/2012/08/24/dark-souls-pc-crashes-low-fps-fix-controls-errors-freezes-and-gfwl-fixes/

The trick is to disable any of your devices listed as an "HID-compliant game controller". No need to uninstall. I created a system restore point JIC.

Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Human Interface Devices >> [Disable all of your devices listed as an "HID-compliant game controller"]

Remember to restore them when you're done. Quite a pain :| All things considered, its working now and that's fine with me until its patched.

From the wikidot:

"Kaathe can be found near The Abyss bonfire after you have defeated The Four Kings, provided that you haven't yet placed the Lordvessel on the Firelink Altar (regardless of whether you have the vessel or not)."

So, it is the act of placing the Lordvessel on the altar that causes Kaathe to not appear, not the act of talking to Frampt.

In order to access the DLC, you need to collect an item from the Duke's Archives, an area only accessible after placing the Lordvessel. So no, it is not possible to access the DLC before killing Sif, if you want to interact with Kaathe in the same playthrough.

There may be one possible way to accomplish this, however: if you get another player to enter your world and give you the Broken Pendant (the item required to enter the DLC). BUT, I've never tried this myself, and after searching about on Google I couldn't find whether or not it was possible.